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55th Congress, ) 
2d Session. ) 



SENATE. 



Eeport 

No. 885. 



REPORT 



Committee on Foreign Relations 



UNITED STATES SENATE, 



RELATIVE TO 



AFFAIRS I3NJ" CUBA.. 



Aprie 13, 1898.— Ordered to be printed. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 

1898. 






m s >^ 






499^3 



JL- ^65/ 




Calendar No., 978. 

55th Congress, \ SENATE. < Report 

2d Session. ] \ No. 885. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



Apkil 13, 1898. — Ordered to be printed. 



Mr. Davis, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, submitted the 

following 

REPORT. 

[To accompany S. R. 149, with the views of the minority.] 

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to which was referred the fol- 
lowing Senate resolutions: Joint resolution No. 2, authorizing and 
requesting the President of the United States to issue a proclamation 
recognizing the political independence of the Republic of Cuba; 
Senate resolution No. 40, instructing the Committee on Foreign 
Relations to inquire what obligations the United States have assumed 

trd the people of Cuba by asserting and maintaining the right to 
prevent the acquisition of that island by any European power and 

; filing its people to remain subject to the dominion of Spain; 

i ) resolution No. 185, that it is the sense of the Senate that Con- 
gress should, with all due and convenient speed, acknowledge by appro- 
priate act the political independence of the Republic of Cuba; joint 
resolution No. 132, recognizing the political independence of the Republic 
of Cuba, aud for other purposes ; joint resolution No. 133, recognizing the 
independence of the Republic of Cuba and declaring war against the 
Kingdom of Spain; joint resolution No. 134, recognizing the independ- 
ence of the Republic of Cuba and providing for intervention by the 
United States; joint resolution No. 135, directing and empowering the 
President, in his discretion, to terminate, by intervention, the hostilities 
between Spain and the people of Cuba, and in favor of the independ- 
ence of said people; joint resolution No. 142, for the recognition of the 
independence of the Republic of Cuba, and joint resolution No. 145, 



IV AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

authorizing the President to take such steps as are necessary to put 
an end to hostilities in Cuba and to establish a republican form of 
government on that island; and the messages of the President of the 
United States dated March 28, 1898, and April 11, 1898, having duly 
considered the same, report as follows : 

The destruction of the United States battle ship Maine and of 2 of 
her officers and 264 of her crew in the harbor of Havana on the night 
of February 15, 1898, excited, to an unprecedented degree, the compas- 
sion and resentment of the American people. 

Manifestations of that resentment were suspended, although the feel- 
ing was not allayed, by the self-restraint of our people, who deter- 
mined to hold their judgment in suspense concerning their ultimate 
action until an official investigation should disclose the cause of that 
great disaster and enable them by direct or circumstantial testimony 
to impute the responsibility therefor. 

That investigation has been made. It was conducted with judicial 
thoroughness and deliberation. The difficulty of demonstrating by 
conclusive proof the efficient personal cause of that sinister event was 
the usual one of exposing plotted and mysterious crimes. No such 
difficulty, however, obscures its official and responsible cause. 

The evidence and findings of the Court of Inquiry were transmitted 
to the Senate by the President, and, with the message, were duly 
referred to the Committee on Foreign Eelations. That committee has 
considered them, and also the message of the President of April 11, 
1898, with all the careful and anxious deliberation which great duties 
and responsibility impose upon the judgment and conscience. 

The eveut itself, though in a certain sense a distinct occurrence, was 
linked with a series of precedent transactions which can not in reason 
be disconnected from it. It was the catastrophe of a unity of events 
extending over more than three years of momentous history. Standing 
by itself it would be, perhaps, merely an ominous calamity. Considered, 
as it must be, with the events with which reason and common sense 
must connect it, and with animus by Spain so plainly apparent that no 
one can even plausibly deny its existence, it is merely one reason 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. V 

for the conclusion to which the investigating mind must come in consid- 
ering the entire subject of the relations of the United States with that 
Government. Your committee have also before them several Senate 
resolutions, which make it their duty to consider all our relations with 
Spain for the last three years, including the destruction of the Maine, 
as one of the incidents of the history of the war which during that 
time has devastated the Island of Cuba. 

So clearly is the destruction of the Maine only a single incident in 
the relations of this Government with Spain, that if that calamity had 
never happened the questions between the United States and that 
Government would press for immediate solution. 

It is the opinion of your committee, having considered the testi- 
mony submitted to the board of inquiry, in connection with further 
testimony taken by the committee and with the relevant and estab- 
lished facts presented by the events of the last three years, that 
the destruction of the Maine was compassed either by the official 
act of the Spanish authorities or was made possible by a negligence 
on their part so willing and gross as to be equivalent in culpability 
to positive criminal action. 

The status of the Maine while in the harbor of Havana and the duty 
of Spain toward her are defined in the opinion of Chief Justice Mar- 
shall in Schooner Exchange v. McFadden, 7 Cranch, 116, 111 : 

" If there be no prohibition, the ports of a friendly nation are considered as open 
to the public ships of all powers with whom it is at peace, and they are supposed 
to enter such ports and remain in them, while they are allowed to remain, under the 
protection of the Government of the place." 

It is not contended that this duty of protection to which the public 
ship is thus entitled while allowed to remain in a port of a friendly 
nation imposes the obligation of an absolute guaranty of her safety. 
But it is insisted that the existence of the duty creates the obligation 
to use due diligence in its performance. When property and life are 
destroyed by an act which the exercise of due diligence by the person 
whose duty it is to use it could have prevented, the happening of such 
an event is sufficient proof that such diligence was not employed. 

The system of civil and military police and espionage in Havana is 



VI AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

all-pervading to an extent probably unequaled in any city in the world 
It is not pretended that any employment was made as regards the 
safety of the Maine of this instrumentality for the detection or preven- 
tion of any attempt against her by private persons. 

It is established that the Maine was destroyed by the explosion of a 
submarine mine, in position under her in a Spanish harbor, at a place 
where she had been moored to a buoy by the express direction and 
guidance of the Spanish authorities. * 

Explosive contrivances of this character are almost exclusively gov- 
ernment agencies of warfare. There is no operation of a pacific char- 
acter for which they can be employed, excepting the removal of wrecks 
or of harbor obstructions. They are not to be had in any place of 
private sale. Their destructive contents, excepting, perhaps, gun- 
powder, which undoubtedly was not employed in this instance, can not 
be easily obtained and are not easily made. The entire contrivance 
is a mechanism of a somewhat complicated character, not generally 
understood except by special manufacturers or by military or naval 
officers who have been instructed how to operate it. 

Such mines, when sunk in harbors, are almost invariably discharged 
by an electric current, conducted over a wire leading from the engine 
of destruction to some place on the shore where a battery can be 
housed, guarded, and attended by trained operators. They are now 
placed, or are made ready to be placed, in all important harbors; 
it may fairly be presumed that they had been placed in the harbor of 
Havana, the history of the last three years being considered. 

In complaisance to Spanish aversion no public vessel of the United 
States had visited that port during that period. The coming of the 
Maine had been announced to the Spanish authorities, and the military 
and naval portion of these did not receive her with the cordiality which 
such visits usually produce. Many of them expressed resentment at 
her presence. Certain newspapers in Madrid and Havana commented 
upon her visit in hostile terms. 

There was, especially in Havana, among the officials who had been 
adherents of Weyler and who resented his recall, an expressed hatred 
of the United States. The time of the explosion must have been 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. VII 

calculated for the moment when the Maine should swing within the 
destructive radius of the mine. 

The report of the Spanish board of inquiry, sedulously promulgated 
in advance of that of the board of the Uuited States, finding, after a 
hurried and most superficial investigation, that the catastrophe was 
from an internal and not from an external cause, was manifestly 
false, and was intended to induce public opinion to prejudge the 
question. 

The duplicity, perfidy, and cruelty of the Spanish character, as they 
always have been, are demonstrated still to continue by their mani- 
festations during the present war in Cuba. All these circumstances 
considered cumulatively, together with other considerations which 
will exactly accord with and add force to them, undenied and unex- 
plained as they are by any authority excepting the baseless report of 
the Spanish board of inquiry, warrant the conclusion stated herein- 
before that the destruction of the Maine was compassed either by 
the official act of the Spanish authorities (and the ascertainment of 
the particular person is not material), or was made possible by a 
negligence on their part so willing and gross as to be equivalent 
in culpability to positive criminal action. 



Upon due consideration of all of the relevant facts of the relations 
of this Government with Spain, including the destruction of the Maine^ 
and of the history of the rebellion, it is the opinion of your committee 
that the United States ought at once to recognize the independence 
of the people of Cuba, and also ought to intervene to the end that 
the war and its unexampled atrocities shall cease, and that such 
independence shall become a settled political fact at the earliest 
possible moment, by the establishment by the free action of the 
people of Cuba when such action can be had, of a government 
independent in fact and form. 

It is believed that recognition of the belligerency of the insurgents 
in Cuba, if it had been given seasonably, when it was suggested by 



VIII AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

concurrent resolutions to that effect passed by Congress, would have 
insured the speedy termination of the war without involving the 
United States in the contest. Such recognition was not given, and 
conditions have changed so materially since it was thus proposed 
that, if given now, it would fall far short of supplying the just 
requirements of the present situation in the light solely of the 
interests of the United States. 

The recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba is jus- 
tified and demanded by the highest considerations of duty, righf, and 
policy. 

The insurgents hold the eastern portion of the island, to the prac- 
tical exclusion of Spain. This possession extends over one body of 
territory comprising fully one-half of the area of Cuba. 

The extermination by Spain of the peaceful inhabitants of the west- 
ern portion of the island has so affected the balance of population 
between these moieties of Cuba that the insurgents comprise in the 
eastern half nearly one-third of the population of the island. That 
third of the population pays taxes to them, serves in their armies, 
and in every way supports and is loyal to them. This situation has 
existed ever since the first few months of the war. The armies of 
Spain under Campos, Weyler, and Blanco, successively have been 
repelled in every invasion that they have attempted of the eastern 
half of the island. 

The cause of Spain has continually grown weaker and that of the 
insurgents has grown stronger. The former is making no substantial 
effort for the recovery of these lost provinces. Their people are secure 
from invasion and cruel administration. Spain has never been able 
to subject them to her unprecedented and murderous policy of concen- 
tration and extermination. Her armies have been more than deci- 
mated in the attempt to subdue them. Two hundred thousand of her 
soldiers have failed to reduce the insurgents. The few reinforce- 
ments that she is now sending to Cuba do not supply a tithe, of her 
losses caused by battle and disease. 

Her control over the western portion of the island is dominance over 
a desolation which she herself has created. Even there she controls 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. IX 

only the territory occupied by her cantonments and camps. Outside 
these the insurgents are everywhere in presence. 

In the population of Cuba the native born preponderate in a very 
large proportion, probably of 8 to 1. We have been assured by the most 
unimpeachable authority (we mean Senators Proctor, Gallinger, Thurs- 
ton, and Money) that the native-born Cubans everywhere, even within 
the military lines of Spain, are opposed to the parent State, and are in 
sympathy with the insurgents. 

We have also been assured by the same authority that the native 
Cubans, by superiority in education, are better qualified than the 
Spaniards, and are thoroughly capable to administer the government 
of the island. 

The preceding observations have assumed a certain control and 
sovereignty by Spain over the western portion of Cuba. W r e have 
indicated its character. It is limited to scattered and fortified areas, 
and it is not a civil sovereignty. It is merely a military occupation oi 
fortified places. Even this dominion has been made possible and con- 
tinues only by the infliction of a policy for which the history of no 
people (excepting possibly that of Spain herself) furnishes any example. 
The world knows what that policy is and all civilization execrates it. 
It consists in compelling, under penalty of death, the rural popula- 
tion of the western part of the island to leave their homes, their fields, 
their stock, and other chattels, and mass themselves between the out- 
skirts of certain designated towns and a military cordon intercepting 
their return into the country. As they departed from their homes 
their houses were burned; the growth of their fields was trodden down 
by cavalry; their agricultural implements, furniture, and domestic 
utensils were destroyed; their cattle and horses were swept away by 
Spain. Throughout wide areas of a region of unsurpassed fertility, 
which had been densely populated for more than two centuries, not one 
living thing, brute or human, not one habitation, not one productive 
field is to be seen. 

For the miserable condition to which an entire population is reduced 
Spain has afforded no substantial relief, and the evil and distress have 
become so huge and her financial debility is so extreme that she is 



X AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

now unable to relieve, even if she could be supposed to have the 
disposition to do so. 

The result has been that over 200,000 of the subjects of Spain have 
been killed by the action of that Government, and 200,000 more are 
suffering from famine and disease. 

There has been no distinction of sex or age in this protracted and 
torturing massacre. The children of this generation have been starved 
to death, and the immolation of womanhood has destroyed the possi- 
bility of posterity. 

There can be no doubt that the contriver of this unexampled scheme 
of atrocity intended to depopulate, to the full extent of an ability unde- 
niably great in the conception and perpetration of colossal crime, the 
island of its native people and to repeople it by natives of Spain. 

We can not consent upon any conditions that the depopulated por- 
tions of Cuba shall be recolonized by Spain any more than she should 
be allowed to found a new colony in any other part of tbis hemisphere 
or island thereof. Either act is regarded by the United States as dan- 
gerous to our peace and safety. 

That Government has violated the laws of civilized warfare in the 
conduct of her military operations. Her troops have slaughtered pris- 
oners after their surrender ; and have massacred the sick and wounded 
insurgent soldiers and their physicians and nurses in their captured 
hospitals. 



When publicists and jurists speak of the right of sovereignty of 
a parent State over a people or a colony they mean that divinely 
delegated supremacy in the exercise of which man should show 
"likest God." They never mean that a usurpation of diabolism 
shall be sanctified upon the plea that it is sovereignty none the 
less than that of a well-ordered and humane government. Against 
such reasoning the 

moral laws 
Of nature and of nations speak aloud 



AFFAIRS IN CUIIA. XI 

and declare that the State which thus perverts and abuses its power 
thereby forfeits its sovereignty. And this principle has been the 
foundation of the repeated interventions by the States of Europe in 
the affairs of Turkey, who, abominable and atrocious as her cruelty 
has been toward her subjects in Greece and in the northern part 
of her dominions in Europe, and in Armenia, has not approached 
the eminence at which Spain stands in solitary and unapproachable 
infamy. 

The recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba would 
not be a justifiable cause of war by Spain against the United States. 
Upon this principle the best-esteemed authorities are agreed. Among 
their opinions the following declaration of Mr. Webster in his letter to 
Mr. Hiilsemann stands preeminent: 

"If, therefore, the United States had gone so far as formally to acknowledge the 
independence of Hungary, although, as the result has proved, it would have heen 
a precipitate step, and one from which no benefit would have resulted to either 
party, it would not nevertheless have been an act against the law of nations, 
provided they took no part in her contest with Austria." 

If not an act against the law of nations, it, of course, could not 
be a justifiable ground for war. 

The recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba entitles 
the United States to insist that the war shall be conducted in accordance 
with those humane laws which have been ordained by the common 
consent of the civilized world, and which have done so much to mitigate 
the horrors of warfare. So long as this Government abstains from 
such recognition, Spain is entitled to insist that we agree with her that 
the insurrection is merely a treasonable riot and not a formal and 
organized rebellion, and that she is therefore entitled to execute 
upon the insurgents and upon American citizens, and all persons 
upon the island, the penalties of a domestic code which is an affront 
to civilization. 

The United States has been in this attitude of concurrence ever 
since the beginning of the war. It has, as a consequence, in a spirit 
of forbearance, submitted to many atrocities perpetrated by Spain 
upon our own citizens which, under recognition, would have 



XII AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

had no warrant in international law and would have afforded just 
grounds of procedure by this Government under its acknowledged 
principles. Citizens of the United States have been condemned to 
death by military tribunals in violation of their treaty rights. The 
expostulations of this Government have been in effect merely petitions 
for royal clemency. The Competitor prisoners, captured under our 
flag, were imprisoned nearly seventeen months and were never 
brought to trial, though they were subjected to many harsh, illegal, 
and degrading preliminary examinations. The entire proceeding 
against them was unlawful and in derogation of their rights and of our 
honor. But as they were technically, in the attitude which the United 
States had assumed and had placed them in refusing recognition of 
belligerency or independence, merely ordinary criminals prosecuted 
by Spain under her domestic penal code, this Government, it was logi- 
cally insisted by Spain, had no right to make the question one of 
international obligation. It accepted royal clemency and, in the person 
of its citizens, received a pardon for a crime instead of demanding 
reparation for a violated right. 

The United States has been compelled by its attitude of nonrecog- 
nition to assist Spain by its execution of our neutrality statutes. 
If there is no war, and the insurgents are merely an unlawful con- 
federacy of common insurrectionists, they can have no legitimate com- 
mercial dealings with the citizens of the United States. 

Nor can the insurgents object to Spain having such dealings oi 
every character, including the purchase of supplies, which, had recog- 
nition been accorded, would be contraband of war, and therefore not 
to be furnished except through breach of neutrality. The United 
States has therefore been an assistant of Spain. The supplies for 
that power have been largely purchased iu this country. The unrec- 
ognized insurgents have had no right to complain. On the other 
hand, they and their adherents have been prohibited from making 
such purchases and from exporting any supplies, however acquired. 
There has, therefore, been no real neutrality by this Government 
throughout the entire business. To the contrary, Spain has been the 
customer of the people of the United States, who have sold her, with 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. XIII 

technical lawfulness, everything that she has required to repress by 
such processes as we have indicated a people struggling against 
tyranny for their liberties. To prevent the insurgents from buying 
or exporting at all while Spain has bought and exported to the extent 
of her requirements the Navy and revenue vessels of the United 
States have been diligently and successfully employed. It has been 
stated, and we believe with entire correctness, that this vigilance 
and policing of the seas by the United States in favor of Spain 
and against the insurgents has cost this Government more than 
$2,000,000. 



The conflict of opinion and definition among the jurists upon the 
subject of intervention is very great. Some of them deny its existence 
as a right under any circumstances, excepting of self-defense against 
an imminent peril, while other writers, of equal authority, maintain 
the validity of its assertion as a right for causes which may be incon- 
sistent with that great foundation principle of international law, the 
equal and inviolable sovereignty of States. 

The extremes of these opinions are represented by Guizot and 
Arntz. The former declares that " no State has the right to inter- 
vene in the situation or internal government of another State, except 
only when the interest of its own safety renders such intervention 
indispensable." 

Arntz maintains that the right of intervention exists: 

1. "When the institutions of one State violate or threaten to 
violate the rights of another State, or when such violation is 
the necessary consequence of its institutions and the impossibility 
of an orderly coexistence of States results therefrom; 

2. "When a government, acting entirely within the limits of its 
prerogatives of sovereignty, violates the rights of humanity, whether 
by measures contrary to the interests of other States, or by excess of 
injustice aud cruelty which deeply wounds public morals and civiliza- 
tion. 



AtV AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

"The right of intervention is a legitimate one, because, however 
important may be the rights of sovereignty and independence, there 
is one thing of still greater importance, and that is the law of humanity 
and human society, which ought not to be outraged." 

Between these extremities of opinion the differences among the pub- 
licists are exceedingly various and irreconcilable. Professor Hall, in 
his work on International Law (3d ed., p. 288, note 1), in considering 
the opinions of modern international jurists who touch upon humani- 
tarian intervention, says that " the treatment which the subject 
receives from them is merely fragmentary, notice being taken of 
some only of its grounds, which are usually approved or disap- 
proved without very clear reference to a general principle. 

Vattel (liv. 1, ch. iv, s. 56) considers it permissible to succor a peo- 
ple oppressed by its sovereign, but does not appear to sanction any of 
the analogous grounds of intervention. Wheaton (Elem., pt. 11, ch. 1, 
s. 93), Bluntschli (s. 478), Mamiani (p. 86), give the right of aiding an. 
oppressed race. 

Heffter (S. 46), while denying the right of intervention to repress 
tyranny, holds that so soon as a civil war has broken out a foreign 
state may assist either party engaged in it. Calvo (S. 166) and Fiore 
(1, 446) think that states can intervene to put an end to slaughter." 

Vattel says, Book II, Chap. IV, top p. 157, "As to those monsters 
who, under the title of sovereigns, render themselves the scourges and 
horror of the human race, they are savage beasts, whom every brave 
man may justly exterminate from the face of the earth. 

"All antiquity has praised Hercules for delivering the world from 
Antaeus, a Busiris, and a Diomede." 

If these opinions state the correct rule, as we believe they do, the 
right of intervention by the United States in the present instance 
is indubitable. They are, however, controverted by other publi- 
cists of great eminence. It is possibly correct to say as to this 
conflict of opinion that this portion of international law is, though 
operative in certain cases, in that formative and progressive condition 
of development by which many benign principles, though formerly 
contested, have at last become firmly established. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. XV 

The followiug reflections of Mr. Pomeroy upon this subject (Int. 
Law, p. 241', et seq.) appear to be well considered: 

"How far the right of intervention legitimately extends, under what circum- 
stances it may be invoked, to what extent it may he carried, are questions 
which have given rise to much discussion — questions that have never been 
authoritatively settled, and perhaps never will he settled. 

"Hardly a writer absolutely denies the existence of the right at all; it would seem 
to be unsafe to go to this length. On the other hand, it seems almost equally unsafe 
to admit the right to exist at all, for, as it is utterly impossible to place any exact 
limits upon it, its very admission may open the door to vast and terrible abuses. 

"While the fact is as stated that instances of intervention are and have been con- 
stantly occurring, I am of opinion that the whole subject does not so much belong to 
international law as to politics. 

# # * * # * * 

"In short, I can not think that the subject of intervention has been, or perhaps can 
be, regulated by the positive international law. It must be relegated to the domain 
of those high politics, those principles of expediency, which control the conduct, 
both domestic and foreign, of nations." 

The actual conduct aud policies of nations give warrant to these 
observations. To sustain repeated intervention during the present 
century no law has been invoked. They have been acts of necessity 
or policy. This statement is corroborated by the creation and exist- 
ence of two policies, one of Europe, the other of the United States, 
each of which is based distinctly upon the assertion of an intention 
to intervene under certain circumstances. We refer to the principle 
of the balance of power and to the Monroe Doctrine. Each is a dis- 
tinct and arbitrary policy of intervention, to be effected in certain 
contingencies in furtherance of national policies, and to justify which 
no canon of international law was ever invoked. The former has pro- 
foundly affected the relations of the European States and the inde- 
pendence of many of those sovereignties. 

The latter has kept the powers of Europe out of the American 
continents ever since it was promulgated. It was a distinct announce- 
ment that the United States would intervene, under certain expressed 
circumstances, in the affairs of every Central American and South 
American State. The United States did interveue by threat and show 



XVI AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

of force in the affairs of Mexico and France, and compelled the evacu- 
ation of that Republic by a European power, whose own prior inter- 
vention in Mexican affairs had overthrown a republic and established 
a monarchy upon its ruins No publicist has ever asserted that either 
of these policies is part of the law of nations. 



Justification for intervention is strengthened in such cases as the 
present, where the oppressions by a State of its subjects have been 
so inveterate, atrocious, and sanguinary as to require intervention by 
other nations in the interests of humanity and the peace of the world, 
for the purpose of overthrowing that Government and establishing or 
recognizing another in its place as the only means of extirpating an 
otherwise incurable and dangerous evil. 



The conduct of the European [powers respecting Turkey has been 
pursuant to the policy which impels one nation to intervene in the 
affairs of another State to stop cruelty and massacre, and, if necessary, 
to depose it from sovereignty. That State became a member of the 
commonwealth of European powers by the treaty of Paris of 1858. 
The integrity and sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire were guaran- 
teed. It has stood ever since upon an equality with Spain in all 
respects. And yet Turkey has been the subject of repeated inter- 
ventions since 1856, which have restrained her sovereignty, usurped 
her domestic administration, repressed her cruelties, and partially 
dismembered her empire. 

The people of her several Danubian provinces, oppressed by her 
misgovernment, rose in rebellion. A scene of massacre followed, which 
stood without precedent until it was made to seem merciful by the 
atrocities perpetrated by Spain upon her subjects in Cuba. Europe 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. XVII 

protested at the conference of Constantinople and suggested reforms 
and concessions in favor of the oppressed people, which Turkey 
promised to grant in part, but vitiated that promise by evasions and 
subterfuges as to some most material requirements. Upon this Europe 
ceased to represent, remonstrate, and implore. Eussia intervened by 
force. Her military successes produced the treaty of San Stefano 
between that power and Turkey, which established the political status 
of the revolted provinces. But, in the opinion of the other European 
powers, Eussia herself had obtained too much under that treaty. 

The consequence was the interposition of the great powers of 
Europe in the affairs of Eussia and Turkey. It was substantially 
an intervention, though otherwise denominated, which compelled 
Eussia -and Turkey to take part in the Congress of Berlin, held in 
1878. They did so because they were constrained by the certainty 
of intervention by force in case they should refuse. The result of 
that Congress was the partial dismemberment of European Turkey, 
and the establishment of new States therein, some partially auton- 
omous, others entirely independent. The cause of these great inter- 
ventions was the cruelty of Turkey toward her own subjects. The 
result was that the interventions secured their independence. 

The cases of the Danubian provinces are so similar to that of Cuba 
as to be nearly identical. The fact that the wrongs were inflicted by 
Mohammedans upon Christians does not mitigate the responsibility of 
Spain or make intervention as to her any less rightful. Surely Chris- 
tian Spain, from the fact that she is a Christian state, is not given 
greater warrant to exterminate her subjects than Mohammedan Turkey 
possessed to extirpate hers. 

Great Britain intervened as to Egypt upon financial grounds, and 
is now administering the revenues and finances of that province. 

The recent interventions of the European powers in favor of Turkey 
and against Greece in her endeavor to assist the Cretan insurgents, is 
familiar history. So, also, is the intervention of the same powers which 
checked the advance of the armies of Turkey into Greece. 

The attitude of the United States toward the present question has 
been based upon the right of intervention and the intention to exer- 
S. Eep. 885 2 



XVIII AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

cise it in certain contingencies. President Cleveland, in his message 
of December 7, 1896, declared that — 

"Whatever circumstances may arise, our policy and our interests would constrain 
us to object to the acquisition of the island or an interference with its control by 
any other power. 

"It should he added that it can not be reasonably assumed that the hitherto expect- 
ant attitude of the United States will be indefinitely maintained. While we are 
anxious to accord all due respect to the sovereignty of Spain, we can not view the 
pending conflict in all its features, and properly apprehend our inevitably close 
relations to it, and its possible results, without considering that by the course 
of events we may be drawn into such an unusual and unprecedented condition, 
as will fix a limit to our patient waiting for Spain to end the contest, either 
alone and in her own way, or with our friendly cooperation, 

"When the inability of Spain to deal successfully with the insurrection has become 
manifest, and it is demonstrated that her sovereignty is extinct in Cuba for all pur- 
poses of its rightful existence, and when a hopeless struggle for its reestablishment 
has degenerated into a strife which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice 
of human life and the utter destruction of the very subject-matter of the conflict, a 
situation will be presented in which our obligations to the sovereignty of Spain will 
be superseded by higher obligations, which we can hardly hesitate to recognize and 
discharge. Deferring the choice of ways and methods until the time for action 
arrives, we should make them depend upon the precise conditions then existing; and 
they should not be determined upon without giving careful heed to every consider- 
ation involving our honor and interest, or the international duty we owe to Spain. 
Until we face the contingencies suggested, or the situation is by other incidents 
imperatively changed, we should continue in the line of conduct heretofore pursued, 
thus in all circumstances exhibiting our obedience to the requirements of public 
law and our regard for the duty enjoined upon us by the position we occupy in the 
family of nations. 

"A contemplation of emergencies that may arise should plainly lead us to avoid 
their creation, either through a careless disregard of present duty or even an undue 
stimulation and ill-timed expression of feeling. But I have deemed it not amiss to 
remind the Congress that a time may arrive when a correct policy and care for our 
interests, as well as a regard for the interests of other nations and their citizens, 
joined by considerations of humanity and a desire to see a rich and fertile country, 
intimately related to us, saved from complete devastation, will constrain our Gov- 
ernment to such action as will subserve the interests thus involved, and at the same 
time promise to Cuba and its inhabitants an opportunity to enjoy the blessings of 
peace." 



AFFAIES IN CUBA. XIX 

President McKinley, in his message of December 6, 1897, said: 

" The instructions given to our new Minister to Spain before his departure for his 
post directed him to impress upon that Government the sincere wish of the United 
States to lend its aid toward the ending of the war in Cuba by reaching a peaceful 
and lasting result, just and honorable alike to Spain and to the Cuban people. 
These instructions recited the character and duration of the contest, the widespread 
losses it entails, the burdens and restraints it imposes upon us, with constant dis- 
turbance of National interests, and the injury resulting from an indefinite contin- 
uance of this state of things. It was stated that at this juncture our Government 
was constrained to seriously inquire if the time was not ripe when Spain of her own 
volition, moved by her own interests and every sentiment of humanity, should put 
a stop to this destructive war and make proposals of settlement honorable to herself 
and just to her Cuban colony. It was urged that as a neighboring nation, with 
large interests in Cuba, we could be required to wait only a reasonable time for the 
mother country to establish its authority and restore peace and order within the 
borders of the Island; that we could not contemplate an indefinite period for the 
accomplishment of this result. 

"No solution was proposed to which the slightest idea of humiliation to Spain 
could attach, and indeed precise proposals were withheld to avoid embarrassment 
to that Government. All that was asked or expected was that some safe way might 
be speedily provided and permanent peace restored. 

"Sure of the right, keeping free from all offense ourselves, actuated only by 
upright and patriotic considerations, moved neither by passion nor selfishness, the 
Government will continue its watchful care over the rights and property of Ameri- 
can citizens and will abate none of its efforts to bring about by peaceful agencies a 
peace which shall be honorable and enduring. If it shall hereafter appear to be 
a duty imposed by our obligations to ourselves, to civilization and humanity to 
intervene with force, it shall be without fault on our part and only because the 
necessity for such action will be so clear as to command the support and approval 
of the civilized world." 

Tbese declarations more than implied tbat tbis Government would 
interpose in tbe event of failure within a reasonable time to conquer 
the insurgents or to induce them by concessions of home rule to 
lay down their arms. They have not been subdued. The autonomy 
proffered was specious and illusory. It has been rejected by the 
insurgents not because it was specious and illusory, but because 
they will accept nothing short of complete national independence. 
The suggestion of a more complete autonomy has also been rejected 



XX AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

by them. They declare to the United States and Spain alike that 
no terms short of independence, which those powers may attempt 
to prescribe to them will be accepted. Spain refuses to grant 
independence. 

The war, then, must go ou, and the misery which has shocked the civ- 
ilized world must continue and increase unless it is terminated by the 
triumph of Cuba or Spain or by the interposition of the United States. 

It is the opinion of this committee that the time to interpose has 
arrived; that intervention which will stop the war and secure the 
national independence of Cuba should at once take place. If under 
all the circumstances Spain shall choose to regard such action by this 
Government as a cause of war, that consequence, however deplorable, 
will be accepted by the American people with all the fortitude that 
confidence in the justice of their action can inspire. 

Such intervention is justifiable and necessary for the following rea- 
sons: The present situation in Cuba has become a menace to the 
peace of the world, and especially to the peace and safety of the 
United States. Spain has bid for European intervention, thus far 
apparently without success, but the conditions which make such inter- 
vention possible should be removed at once. 

For nearly three years the hostilities in Cuba and the Spanish 
administration of that island have involved this Government in perilous 
relations with Spain and raised questions of right and responsibility 
of which no prospect of settlement is apparent. So long as these con- 
ditions are allowed to remain unsettled they will increase an irritation 
which has already become intolerable, and which will inevitably ulti- 
mately require adjustment by measures much more vigorous than now 
seem adequate to compose existing difficulties. 

Spain has failed to perform her treaty obligations and other inter- 
national duties toward the United States. To give a minute specifica- 
tion of these derelictions would unnecessarily extend this paper. They 
are the familiar matters of current history. American citizens have 
been seized and imprisoned without shadow of right, and have been 
proceeded against by violent and irregular forms in violation of treaty 
obligations. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. XXI 

The assassination of Euiz, an American citizen, was the act of the 
Spanish officials who held him in a custody unwarranted by his treaty 
rights. JSTo reparation has been made for this act, although it has been 
demanded by this Government. 

A justifiable cause for intervention has been afforded by the bar- 
barity with which Spain has conducted her military operations; by her 
slaughter of captured insurgent soldiers, and by her extermination of 
not less than 200,000 of her own noncombatant subjects — men, women, 
and children — by driving them from their homes into places of concen- 
tration and there suffering them to die of starvation and disease. 

In 1893 there were $50,000,000 of property in the Island of Cuba 
belonging to the citizens of the United States. Much of this has been 
destroyed, and much of that destruction has been by the acts of Spain. 
The destruction of the remainder she has been unable or unwilling to 
prevent. 

The claims on file in the Department of State against Spain for 
indemnity for this destroyed property are about $16,000,000 in amount. 

Her military officers have levied contributions upon American plant- 
ers as the price for the preservation of their estates and the continu- 
ance of their agricultural operations. 

In 1893 the commerce of the United States with Cuba had reached 
the annual sum of nearly $100,000,000. Since that time it has been 
substantially annihilated by the methods of Spanish military and civil 
maladministration. Certain sworn statements made before the com- 
mittee and other documents are herewith submitted as part of this 
report. 

The committee recommend the adoption of the accompanying resolu- 
tion: 

Whereas the abhorrent conditions which have existed for more than 
three years in the Island of Cuba, so near our own borders, have 
shocked the moral sense of the people of the United States, have been 
a disgrace to Christian civilization, culminating, as they have, in the 
destruction of a United States battle ship, with two hundred and sixty- 
six of its officers and crew, while on a friendly visit in the harbor of 



XXII AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Havana, and can not longer be endured, as has been set forth by the 
President of the United States in his message to Congress of April 
eleventh, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, upon which the action of 
Congress was invited : Therefore, 

Resolved by the Senate and Rouse of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled, First. That the people of the 
Island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent. 

Second. That it is the duty of the United States to demand, and the 
Government of the United States does hereby demand, that the Gov- 
ernment of Spain at once relinquish its authority and government in 
the Island of Cuba and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba 
and Cuban waters. 

Third. That the President of the United States be, and he hereby 
is, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces of 
the United States, and to call into the actual service of the United 
States the militia of the several States, to such extent as may be neces- 
sary to carry these resolutions into effect. 



VIEWS OF MINORITY. 

The undersigned members of said committee cordially concur in the 

report made upon the Cuban resolutions, but we favor the immediate 

recognition of the Eepublic of Cuba, as organized in that island, as a 

free, independent, and sovereign power among the nations of the 

world. 

David Turpie. 

E. Q. Mills. 

Jno. W. Daniel. 

J. B. FORAKER. 



04th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Document 

1st Session, f \ No. 166. 



Ordered printed for the use of the Senate. 



LETTER OF HON. T. ESTRADA PALMA TO HON. RICHARD OLNEY, 
SECRETARY OP STATE. 

Washington, December 7, 1895. 

Sir : I hand you herewith a statement of the facts upon which I, as 
authorized representative of the Cubans in arms, ask that the rights of 
belligerency be accorded them by your Government. 

If you so desire I can exhibit to you the originals of the documents 
mentioned or set forth in said statement. 

Should it be necessary or desirable for me to point out the arguments, 
based on the facts submitted, which I deem proof that we are now in con- 
dition to ask for belligerency, it will afford me great pleasure to do so. 

Begging your earliest and most favorable consideration of this sub- 
ject, I have the honor to remain, very respectfully, yours, 

T. Estrada Palma. 
To Hon. Richard Olney, 

Secretary of State of the United States of America, 

Washington, D. 0. 



Washington, D. C, December 7, 1895. 
Sir : While admitting that, as a rule, governments do not take cog- 
nizance of the justice or injustice of a struggle in which they are called 
upon to grant the rights of belligerency to one of the contending par- 
ties, the revolution for the independence of the Cuban people, initiated 
on February 24 last, is so similar in its character to that which resulted 
in the establishment of the foremost Eepublic in the world, the United 
States of America, that I feel called upon to point out the causes leading 
to the present uprising in Cuba. 

CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. 

These causes are substantially the same as those of the former revo- 
lution, lasting from 1808 to 1878 and terminating only on the represen- 
tation of the Spanish Government that Cuba would be granted such 
reforms as would remove the grounds of complaint on the part of the 
Cuban people. Unfortunately the hopes thus held out have never been 
realized. The representation which was to be given the Cubans has 
proved to be absolutely without character; taxes have been levied 
anew on everything conceivable; the offices in the island have increased, 
but the officers are all Spaniards; the native Cubans have been left 
with no public duties whatsoever to perform, except the payment of 
taxes to the Government and blackmail to the officials, without privi- 
lege even to move from place to place in the island except on the per- 
mission of governmental authority. 

Spain has framed laws so that the natives have substantially been 
deprived of the right of suffrage. The taxes levied have been almost 



2 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

entirely devoted to support the army and navy in Cuba, to pay interest 
on the debt that Spain has saddled on the island, and to pay the salaries 
of the vast number of Spanish officeholders, devoting only $746,000 
for internal improvements out of the $26,000,000 collected by tax. No 
public schools are within reach of the masses for their education. All 
the principal industries of the island are hampered by excessive im- 
posts. Her commerce with every country but Spain has been crippled 
in every possible manner, as can readily be seen by the frequent protests 
of shipowners and merchants. 

The Cubans have no security of person or property. The judiciary 
are instruments of the military authorities. Trial by military tribunals 
can be ordered at any time at the will of the Captain-General. There 
is, beside, no freedom of speech, press, or religion. In point of fact, 
the causes of the Eevolution of 1775 in this country were not nearly as 
grave as those that have driven the Cuban people to the various insur- 
rections which culminated in the present revolution. 

A statement of the facts and circumstances that have forced the 
Cubans from peaceful to belligerent measures of obtaining that redress 
which they are satisfied can only come with absolute independence and 
republican form of government are set forth at large in the pamphlet 
hereto annexed, marked " A." 

ABSOLUTE INDEPENDENCE OR EXTERMINATION. 

Every promise of reform made to procure peace in 1878 having been 
broken by the Spanish Government, and subsequent peaceful endeavor 
in that direction having proved useless, Cuba is to-day in the condition 
described by Yattel (Law of Nations, sec. 291) : 

If his (the sovereign's) promises are not inviolable, the rebels will have no security 
in treating with him; when they have once drawn the sword tbey must throw away 
the scabbard, as one of the ancients expressed it, and the prince destitute of the more 
gentle and salutary means of appeasing the revolt will have no other remaining 
expedient than of utterly exterminating the insurgents ; these will become formidable 
through despair; compassion will bestow success on them; their party will increase, 
and the state will be in danger. 

The only solution of the revolution in Cuba is independence or exter- 
mination. 

PRELIMINARY ORGANIZATION FOR REVOLT. 

Years before the outbreak of the present hostilities the people within 
and without the island began to organize, with a view of preparing for 
the inevitable revolution, being satisfied, after repeated and patient 
endeavors, that peaceful petition was fruitless. 

In order that the movement should be strong from the beginning, and 
organized both as to civil and military administration, the Cuban Rev- 
olutionary party was founded, with Jose Marti at its head. The principal 
objects were by united efforts to obtain the absolute independence of 
Cuba, to promote the sympathy of other countries, to collect funds 
with these objects in view, and to invest thein in munitions of war. 
The military organization of this movement was completed by the 
election of Maximo Gomez as commander in chief. This election was 
made by the principal officers who fought in the last revolution. 

THE UPRISING. 

The time for the uprising was fixed at the solicitation of the people 
hi Cuba, who protested that there was no hope of autonomy, and that 
their deposits of arms and ammunition were in danger of being discov- 
ered and their leaders arrested. A large amount of war material was 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 3 

then bought by Marti and vessels chartered to transport it to Cuba, 
where arrangements were made for its reception in the provinces of 
Santiago, Puerto Principe, and Santa Clara; but at Fernandina, Fla., 
it was seized by the United States authorities. Efforts were success- 
fully made for the restitution of this material; nevertheless valuable 
time and opportunity was thus lost. The people in Cuba clamored for 
the revolution to proceed immediately, and in consequence the uprising 
was not further postponed. The date fixed for the uprising was the 
24th of February. The people responded in Santiago, Santa Clara, and 
Matanzas. The provinces of Puerto Principe and Pinar del Eio did not 
respond, owing to lack of arms. In Puerto Principe rigorous search had 
previous to the 24th been instituted and all arms and ammunition con- 
fiscated by the Government. The leaders in the provinces of Matanzas 
and Santa Clara were imprisoned, and so the movement there was 
checked for the time being. 

On the 27th the Governor-General of the Island of Cuba, Emilio 
Calleja, issued a proclamation declaring the provinces of Matanzas and 
Santiago in a state of siege, and fixed a period of eight days within 
which all those who surrendered were to be pardoned. Under these 
conditions, on the 3d of March, Juan Gualberto Gomez surrendered, 
was brought to Havana, and set at liberty, but before he could leave 
the palace of the Captain-General was rearrested on the ground that 
he had bought arms for the movement, and was subsequently eourt- 
martailed and sent in chains to the Spanish penal colony in Ceuta, 
Africa. 

GROWTH OF THE REVOLUTION. 

In the province of Santiago the revolution rapidly increased in 
strength under the leadership of Bartolome Masso, one of the most 
influential and respected citizens of Manzanillo; Guillermo Moncada, 
Jesus Kabi, Pedro Perez, Jose Miro, and others. 

It was characterized by the Spanish Government as a negro and 
bandit movement, but many of the moiit distinguished and wealthy 
white citizens of the district flocked to the insurgent camp. 

The Spanish authorities, through some of the Autonomists, attempted 
to persuade these men to lay down their arms. Gen. Bartolome Masso 
was twice approached in this behalf, but positively refused to enter- 
tain any negotiations which were not based on the absolute independ- 
ence of Cuba. 

On the 1st of April, Generals Antonio and JosC Maceo, Flor Crom- 
bet, and Aguatin Cebreco, all veteran leaders in the former revolt, 
landed at Duaba, in the province of Santiago, and thousands rose to 
join them. Antonio Maceo then took command of the troops in that 
province, and on the 11th of April a detachment received Generals 
Maximo Gomez, Jose Marti, Francisco Borrerro, and Angel Guerra. 

Captain-General Calleja was, on the 16th of April, succeeded by Gen. 
Arsenio Martinez Campos, the present commander in chief of the Span- 
ish forces, who has the reputation of being Spain's greatest living 
general. 

BATTLES AND CAMPAIGN. 

Campos's first plan of campaign was to confine the revolution to the 
province of Santiago, and he then stated that he would crush the insur- 
gents, establish peace, and return to Spain by the November following. 

He asserted that the province of Puerto Principe would never rise 
in rebellion; and in order to give color to the statement and hope of 



4 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

labor to the unemployed, he projected a line of railway from Santa 
Cruz to Puerto Principe, planning also another from Manzanillo to 
Bayamo. 

These two projects, as well as the proposed construction of wharves, 
were never seriously contemplated. From the very beginning of the 
uprising, conflicts between the Spanish troops and the Cubans were of 
daily occurrence, and many engagements of importance also took place, 
forts being captured, towns taken and raided. 

It is of course useless to describe every skirmish in this province; 
the following are among the most important operations: 

Los Negros, where General Eabi defeated the Spanish colonels San- 
toscildes and Zubikoski; Ramon de las Yaguas, where Colonel Garzon 
suprised and captured Lieutenant Gallego and 50 men, who were dis- 
armed and permitted to leave unmolested — the troops sent to reinforce 
the Spaniards being also defeated; El Guanabano, where General 
Masso and Colonel Estrada forced Santoscildes to retreat to Bayamo, 
with great loss; Jarahuca, where General Maceo defeated General 
Salcedo, who had more than 3,000 men under him. 

Combined operation of Generals Antonio and Jose" Maceo, who cap- 
tured the town of Cristo and 200 rifles and 40,000 rounds, while Colonel 
Garzon took the town of Caney, and Colonel Plan as attacked a military 
convoy on the railroad. 

The town of Campechuela was attacked by Colonel Guerra and Colo- 
nel Estrada, who forced the garrisons of the two forts to surrender. 

Juraguanas, where Colonel Estrada, with .1,000 men, met an equal 
number of Spanish regulars and defeated them. 

Colonel Guerra surprised a Spanish guerrilla under Boeras; made 
many prisoners, whom he set at liberty. 

El Cacao, where General Eabi cut to pieces the Spanish forces under 
LieUt. Col. IT. Sanchez and obtained many rifles and ammunition. 

El Jobito: This was one of the most important engagements in the 
east. It took place near Guantanamo, and Lieutenant Colonel Bach 
was killed and his troops decimated by Generals Maceo and Perez. 

About the middle of July Gen. Martinez Campos, urged by the 
numerous complaints through the press that the Spanish forces in 
Bayamo were in a deplorable condition, without food or hospitals, and 
were cut off from Manzanillo, and wishing by a concerted movement of 
his lieutenants to crush the revolution at one blow, started from Man- 
zanillo on the 12th for the purpose of relieving Bayamo, and intend- 
ing thence to march west and drive Gomez into the Spanish military 
line between the province of Santa Clara and Puerto Principe, thus 
catching the Cubans between two fires. At the same time three Spanish 
columns were to march against Maceo and his forces from different 
directions, and surround and exterminate them. Campos, with 4,800 
men under the command of Gen. Fidel Santoscildes, met 3,600 Cubans 
under Generals Maceo and Eabi on the road to Bayamo at Peralejos. 

The battle which followed is known as the battle of Bayamo, Valen- 
zuela, or Peralejo. It lasted eleven hours. General Santoscildes fell 
in the early part of the engagement, and thereupon Campos himself 
took command. The Spaniards, completely routed, were forced to kill 
all their mules and horses to form with them a barricade ; left their 
convoy, the wounded, and dead on the field, and fled in disorder to 
Bayamo. The loss of the Spaniards was 400 killed and a larger number 
wounded. The Cubans' was 137 in all. Maceo took care of the Span- 
ish wounded, and sent word to Campos to send a detachment to receive 
them, which was done. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 5 

General Campos, on reaching Bayamo, sent for heavy reenforcements, 
withdrawing a considerable number of troops from the province of 
Santa Clara. 

Generals Roloff, Sanchez, and Rodriguez landed in that province 
at about this time with a large amount of war material, but not 
enough, as it proved, to fully arm all those who enthusiastically rushed 
to join them. Before the Spaniards had extricated Campos from his 
perilous position, t'e Cuban forces in the province of Santa Clara had 
been organized into the Fourth Army Corps, and operations were 
immediately begun. 

Santa Clara is one of the wealthiest provinces in the island, and to 
protect the interest there large reenforcements were called from Spain, 
as they could not rely on the Spanish " volunteers." The best proof 
of this was that 400 Spanish volunteers, under Major Casallas, deserted 
and joined the Cuban ranks in a body at their first opportunity, taking 
with them all their arms, ammunitions, and supplies. Here, as in other 
provinces, skirmishes are of daily occurrence, and many fierce encoun- 
ters have taken place. Among the most important engagements were 
the capture of Fort Taguasco by Gen. Serafin Sanchez; Las Yaras, 
where 2,000 Spanish troops under Colonel Rubin were defeated by 
Generals Roloff' and Sanchez; Cantabria, where Colonel Rego took 
many prisoners and war materials, and the raid and burning of the 
town of Guinia de Miranda by Colonel Perez, and Cayo Espino, where 
Colonel Lacret inflicted a severe defeat on the Spaniards under Colonel 
Molina. A most important part of the work of the forces in Santa 
Clara, which occupied considerable time and caused many encounters 
with the enemy, was the destruction of telegraph and telephone com- 
munications and railroads, of which there are many lines or branches 
in this district. 

GOMEZ'S CAMPAIGNS. 

Immediately on the landing of Generals Marti and Gomez they set 
out to cross the province of Santiago and enter that of Puerto Principe. 
It will be remembered that at about this time General Campos arrived 
in the island with reenforcements of over ten thousand men; the object 
of Gomez in marching into Puerto Principe was to lead those whom he 
knew were only expecting his arrival in that province in order to take 
the field. The citizens of Puerto Principe, or Camaguey, as it is also 
called, had the reputation of being rather conservative and hence both 
Spaniards and Cubans waited their determination with great interest. 

Gen. Martinez Campos boasted that the inhabitants of Camaguey 
would never rise in revolt against Spain, but to make assurance doubly 
sure he placed a cordon of troops numbering about 10,000 on the 
border between Santiago and Puerto Principe to prevent the entry of 
Gomez into the latter district. Gomez and Marti started on their 
westward journey with about 300 men. In trying to pass the 
first line of troops at Boca de Dos Rios a severe conflict took place 
May 19, with a greatly superior force in which Jose" Marti was killed. 
Great joy was manifested by the Spaniards, who claimed that the 
revolution had received its deathblow in the loss of Marti, but Gomez 
continued his advance westward, and ordering a feint to be made by 
Gen. Antonia Maceo at a point in the north of the Spanish cordon, he 
succeeded in eluding the enemy and entering the southern part of the 
province of Puerto Principe in the beginning of June. Here he was 
joined by Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, now the President of the 
Republic, the most influential Cuban of that province, together with 



6 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

all the young men of the city, and his forces were rapidly swelled to 
thousands by additions from all parts of the province. These he sub- 
sequently organized into the Third Army Corps. 

Thus Gomez was successful in this first campaign of the revolution. 
Immediately on his arrival in Oamaguey he proceeded by a series of 
rapid cavalry movements to increase his supply of arms and ammuni- 
tion. He captured and burned Alta Gratia and captured the fort of 
El Mulato; he cut to pieces a Spanish guerrilla near Las Yeguas. The 
town and fort of San Jeronimo surrendered to him, and he attacked 
and raided the town of Oascorro; in all of which places many arms and 
ammunition as well as prisoners were taken; the latter being invari- 
ably released. 

During the summer the city of Puerto Principe was constantly 
menaced in order to allow Gomez to complete his organization of the 
province. 

He was much criticised by Gen. Martinez Campos for his inactivity 
during the summer, but the Spanish troops nevertheless did not inter- 
fere with his plans. Early in July he issued the first of the now famous 
orders relative to the sugar crop, and announced his intention of march- 
ing through Santa Clara and into Matanzas in the winter in order to 
superintend the carrying out of his decrees, increasing his military 
stores in the meantime, as well as securing the food supply of his army 
by corralling the cattle of the province in secure places. 

As will be shown further on, General Gomez was upon the establish- 
ment of the Government confirmed as commander in chief of the Cuban 
forces. , 

In order to carry out his winter campaign he placed Maj. Gen. Jose 
Maria Rodriguez in command of the Third Army Corps. The Spaniards 
explained the wonderful progress of the revolution by the fact that it 
is impossible for their soldiers to operate during the wet season, and 
stated that as soon as the winter or dry season set in, or, as it has been 
expressed by one of her diplomatic representatives, after three days of 
a northern wind, the Cubans would be driven back from the provinces 
of Santa Clara and Puerto Principe in the province of Santiago, 
intending then, by a concentration of their entire fleet at the eastern 
end of the island, to cut off all basis of supplies and starve the Cubans 
into submission. At the beginning of the dry season Gomez had per- 
fected all the arrangements of his march to the west : he had ordered 
Gen. Antonio Maceo with about 4,000 men, mostly infantry, to follow 
and join him at Sancti Spiritus, on the western boundary of Santa 
Clara, where Generals Eoloff, Sanchez, Perez, and Lacret were waiting, 
under orders, for the advance of the commander in chief. 

Between the provinces of Santa Clara and Puerto Principe there is 
a line of forts extending from the town of Jucaro to the town of Moron, 
called the Trocha. To prevent the entrance of Gomez into Santa Clara, 
Gen. Martinez Campos reenforced their garrisons and placed strong- 
columns along the line to fill up the gaps. General Gomez, with a few 
hundred men, succeeded by a series of maneuvers into getting through 
this line and falling upon the town of Pelayo, and captured the forts 
which guarded it, together with the entire garrison and a large amount 
of arms and ammunition. He then moved north in the province of 
Santa Clara, into the district of Eemedios, moved west, recrossed the 
Trocha, and there joined forces with Gen. Antonio Maceo. The lat- 
ter had marched his soldiers through the entire province of Puerto 
Principe, although four large Spanish columns were sent to interrupt 
his progress. These he succeeded in eluding, defeating them, however, 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 7 

on several occasions. The combined forces of Maceo and Gomez, by a 
series of strategic movements, again succeeded in passing the Trocha; 
their rear guard defeating Colonel Segura, inflicting heavy loss and 
capturing nearly 200 mules laden with arms, ammunition and supplies. 

On the arrival of the combined forces in Santa Clara, Gomez, taking 
charge of all the forces in the district, divided them, sending flying 
columns in advance under Generals Suarez, Perez, and Lacret, dispatch- 
ing others to Sagua, in the north, and toward Trinidad, in the south. 
Maceo's forces made a demonstration on the city of Santa Clara, which 
was now Martinez Campos's headquarters, while Gomez threatened 
Cienfuegos. In all the operations which now followed General Gomez 
had ample forces in his rear, so that his retreat, if made necessary, 
would not be cut off. 

Immediately on the threatening of Cienfuegos Gen. Martinez Campos 
removed his headquarters from Santa Clara to Cienfuegos, and thence 
dispatched a large number of troops to form a line between Cienfuegos, 
Las Cruces, and Lajas, to impede the westward march of the Cuban 
army. Still advancing westward, and ordering a concentration of his 
troops, Gomez outflanked the Spanish command, his rear guard distract- 
ing their attention and engaging them severely at Maltiempo, in the 
western part of the province. 

On the border of Matanzas Gomez again radiated his troops, Gen. 
Quintin Bandera on the north, General Maceo in the center, General 
Gomez himself to the south, while Generals Suarez, Perez, Lacret, and 
other officers attracted the attention of the enemy by rapid marches 
and raids. Martinez Campos had again changed his headquarters, this 
time moving to Colon, in the province of Matanzas; he hoped that the 
Spanish forces to the rear of the Cubans would be able to cooperate 
with him, but every means of communication by railroad, telephone, or 
telegraph had been completely destroyed by the Cubans in their prog- 
ress, and no word could be sent nor soldiers transported quickly enough 
for a combined attack of front and rear of the Cubans. From this time 
on fighting was very sharp, and, as the order of Gomez concerning the 
grinding of the sugar crop was evidently being disobeyed in Matanzas 
and Santa Clara, the torch was applied, and it is estimated that a very 
insignificant part of the sugar crop will be exported this season. 

With calls for the protection of the plantations in Santa Clara and 
Matanzas to attend to, the cities of Santa Clara, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, 
Cardenas, and Colon threatened, with all communications to the east, 
except by water, cut off, with the Cuban forces still advancing in oblique 
directions to the west, Martinez Campos concentrated as many troops 
as possible, sending to the most easterly province, that of Santiago, all 
the troops that could be spared from that district, he himself again 
changing his headquarters with the advance of Gomez to Jovellanos, 
thence to Limonar, to Matanzas, and finally to Havana, where, at the 
present writing, he is actively engaged in fortifying the land approaches 
to the capital, while he has hurried to the neighborhood of Batabano as 
many troops as could be spared, withdrawing even a large number of 
the marines from the fleets, thus assigning them to shore duty. Even 
the line at Batabano has been broken by the Cuban forces, and all com- 
munications to the east have been cut off. 

So grave has the situation become that martial law has been pro- 
claimed in the provinces of Havana and Pinar del Rio, so that the entire 
island from Point Maysi to Cape Antonio is now declared to be in a 
state of siege. The censorship of the press has been made more rigid 
than ever, and an order issued for the delivery of all horses in the 



8 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

island to the Spanish Government at prices ranging from $18 to $35. 
It is not intended to pay for these in cash, as only certificates of the 
delivery of the horses to the Government with the value of the animal 
as fixed by the latter are given to the owners. Either this is an extreme 
war measure taken only because of absolute necessity and of the scar- 
city of money, or it is another example of the gentle methods of the 
Spanish Government in its treatment of the Cuban and his property. 

While the westward march of Gomez was in progress Gens. Francisco 
Carrillo and Jose M. Aguirre landed on the eastern end of the island 
with a considerable supply of munitions, including some artillery, and 
succeeded in marching through the provinces of Santiago and Puerto 
Principe into that of Santa Clara, capturing several forts on the way. 
General Carrillo has taken command in the Eemedios district, where 
his personal popularity has caused thousands to join him. General 
Aguirre reported to the commander in chief, and is now assisting in 
the operations of Matanzas. 

It was not the intention of General Gomez when he planned his winter 
campaign to march on and lay siege to the capital, his only object being 
to prevent the grinding and export of the sugar crop and the conse- 
quent flow of treasure into the Spanish coffers, and to demonstrate to 
the world that he could control the provinces and enforce his orders. 

While this march of the main bodies of troops westward has been 
carried on, the Cuban forces of the other army corps have also suc- 
ceeded in carrying oat the orders concerning sugar cane and prevent- 
ing the establishment of Spanish lines of communication. As artillery 
has now been introduced into the Cuban army, forts are more easily 
taken. There has been constant communication from the interior to 
the coast; vessels of the Spanish navy have frequently been engaged 
by the insurgents., and in one case a small armed coast-guard vessel was 
captured by them 

Supplies are received by the Cubans at convenient points on the coast 
and transferred to the interior. When it is remembered that in the 
revolution of 1861 to 1878 there were never more than 10,000 armed 
insurgents in the field; that these rarely, if ever, took the offensive, 
and yet compelled Spain to maintain an army of 120,000 men in the 
field, many of whom were Cuban volunteers in the strict sense of the 
term ; that this little band caused Spain to spend in the ten years over 
$700,000,000 and to lose over 200,000 men, and that when in contrast 
we see in this revolution there are already more than 50,000 Cubans in 
the field, directed by veterans of the last war, who now are on the offen- 
sive, and that now Cuban does not fight against Cuban, the chance of 
ultimate success of the Cuban arms must appear to an impartial 
observer, especially in the light of Gomez's wonderful western march, 
and that in two months more the climate will again militate against 
the Spanish troops. 

MILITARY ORGANIZATION. 

The military organization of the Cubans is ample and complete. 

Maj. Gen. Maximo Gomez is the commander in chief, as we have said, 
of all the forces, a veteran of the last revolution, as indeed are all the gen- 
erals almost without exception. Maj. Gen. Antonio Maceo is second in 
command of the army of liberation, and was, until called upon to 
cooperate with the commander in chief in the late march to the west- 
ern province, in command of Santiago. 

The army is at present divided into five corps — two in Santiago, one 
in Puerto Principe, and two in Santa Clara and Matanzas. These corps 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 9 

are divided into divisions, these again into brigades, and finally into 
regiments; the forces are moreover divided into cavalry and infantry, 
besides having engineers, and lately artillery and a perfect sanitary 
corps, which latter is in command of Eugenio Sanchez Agramonte, with 
the grade of brigadier-general. Maj. Gen. Jose Maceo commands the 
First Santiago Corps, while Maj. Gen. Bartolome Masso commands the 
Second Corps in that province. 

Commanding divisions and brigades in these two corps are Brig. 
Gens. Pedro Perez, Agnstin Cebreco, Jesus Eabi, Luis Feria, Bernardo 
Capote, Higinio Vasquez, and Angel Guerra. 

The Third Corps is in command of Maj. Gen. Jose" M. Rodriguez. The 
Fourth Corps is in command of Maj. Gen. Cartos Roloff, the divisions 
and brigades being commanded by Maj. Gens. Francisco Carrillo and 
Serafin Sanchez and Brig. Gens. Tranquilino Perez, Juan B. Zayas, and 
Rogelio Castillo. The Fifth Corps is in command of Maj. Gen. Manuel 
Suarez, and the divisions and brigades are commanded by Francisco 
Perez, Jose Lacret, and Jose M. Aguirre. 

The first two corps consist of 26,000 men, mostly infantry ; the third, of 
about 4,000 men, mostly cavalry; the Fourth and. Fifth Corps consisted 
before the late invasion of Gomez of over 20,000 men, both infantry and 
cavalry, which force has been considerably increased in these last days. 
Of the 50,000 men that there are at least in the field, more than half are 
fully armed and equipped, the rest carrying miscellaneous weapons or 
side arms. 

The work of fully equipping the army is now proceeding rapidly. 
The higher grades and commissions are all confirmed by the Government. 

Stations for the manufacture of powder and the reloading of car- 
tridges are established, as well as manufacturing of shoes, saddles, and 
other equipments. The hospitals for the sick and wounded are also 
provided. Bed Cross societies have offered their cooperation, but the 
Spanish commander in chief has refused to allow them to enter the 
insurgent lines. 

The discipline of the army is strict and marauding is promptly pun- 
ished, as was done in the case of Lieut. Alberto Castillo, an officer of the 
Second Corps, who was tried and shot for robbery, and as has been 
repeatedly done with the " Plateados," men who, taking advantage of 
the unsettled condition of affairs in the country, have turned bandits. 
The Cuban Army of Liberation is entirely volunteer, without pay. 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 

As above indicated, Jose" Marti was the head of the preliminary civil 
organization, and he, immediately upon landing with Gomez in Cuba, 
issued a call for the selection of representatives of the Cuban people 
to form a civil government. 

His death postponed for a time the selection of these men, but in the 
beginning of September the call previously issued was complied with. 

Representatives from each of the provinces of Santiago, Puerto 
Principe, Santa Clara, and the western part of the island, comprising 
the provinces of Matanzas and Havana, making twenty in all, were 
elected to the constituent assembly, which was to establish a civil 
government, republican in form. 

A complete list of the members of the constituent assembly which 
met at Jimaguayu, in the province of Puerto Principe, on the 13th of 
September, 1895, together with an account of its organization and 
subsequent action, will be found in the document hereto annexed and 
marked B. 



10 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

A constitution of the Republic of Cuba was adopted on the 16th of 
September, and copy of which will be found in document annexed 
marked B. 

On the 18 th of September the following officers of the Government 
were elected by the constituent assembly in accordance with the terms 
of the constitution: 

President, Salvador Oisneros Betancourt, of Puerto Principe; vice- 
president, Bartolome Masso, of Manzanillo; secretary of war, Carlos 
Boloff, of Santa Clara; secretary of the treasury, Severo Pina, of Sancti 
Spiritus; secretary of the interior, Santiago Garcia Canizares, of Re- 
medios; secretary of foreign relations, Rafael M. Portuondo, of Santiago 
de Cuba; subsecretary of war, Mario Menocal, of Mantanzas; subsec- 
retary of the treasury, Joaquin Castello, of Santiago de Cuba; subsec- 
retary of the interior, Carlos Dubois, of Baracoa; subsecretary of for- 
eign relations, Fermin Valdes Dominguez, of Havana. 

The installation of these officers duly followed. The election of the 
general in chief and the second in command, who is to bear the title of 
lieutenant-general, was then had, and resulted in the unanimous election 
of Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo, respectively. 

On the same day the constituent assembly elected by acclamation 
as delegate plenipotentiary and general agent abroad of the Cuban 
Republic, the undersigned, Tomas Estrada Palma. The credentials 
issued to me are hereto annexed, marked C. 

Immediately thereafter the government council proceeded to the 
headquarters of General Gomez, in Puerto Principe, where the latter 
took the oath of allegiance to the constitution of the Republic, together 
with his troops, who there gathered for this purpose, and was installed 
as commander in chief of the armies of the Republic. 

The government council then proceeded to the j)rovince of Santiago, 
where Gen. Antonio Maceo and his forces took the oath of allegiance. 

Thence the council proceeded to the province or Santa Clara to 
inspect and administer the oath to the troops of the Fourth and Fifth 
Army Corps. They are now on their way to the province of Santiago, 
where their permanent headquarters will be established. 

The divisions of the provinces into prefectures under the supervision 
of the secretary of the interior and the duties which devolve in this 
department are fully set forth in Exhibit B, as well as the duties of the 
secretary of the treasury. The impositions, rate and collection of 
the taxes, and sources of income of the Government will also be found 
in Exhibit B. 

All moneys collected in accordance with the laws of the Republic, as 
well as those received through voluntary contributions, are delivered to 
him or his duly authorized agent and expended under his supervision 
or that of his agents, to supply the present needs of the Government, 
which are mainly purchase of arms and ammunition. 

The money thus collected has been sufficient to equip the army and 
keep it supplied with ammunition, although, as it is natural, from the 
rapid increase of the ranks and the difficulty of bringing supplies into 
the island, many of the new recruits have not yet been fully armed. 
The problem of equipping the army is not a financial one, but arises 
from the caution necessary to blockade running and, above all, the pre- 
ventive measures taken by foreign Governments, and the notice which 
is in all cases given to the enemy of the embarkment of munitions. 
No report of the secretary of the treasury has yet been made, as he 
has been in office but three months. 

For the purpose of properly collecting the imposts the roads to all 
cities, as well as the coast, are patrolled by the Cubans. The Cuban 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 11 

Government publishes two newspapers, El Cubano Libre and the Bole- 
tin de la Guerra. 

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS. 

From the beginning of this insurrection the conduct of the Cubans 
as to prisoners lias been in strong contrast to that of the Spaniards; 
prisoners taken by the Cubans have been invariably well treated, 
cared for, and liberated, officers as well as common soldiers, as soon as 
it was possible under the circumstances, and word sent to the Spanish 
officers to call for them on the guaranty that the detachment would be 
respected. 

As instances we may recite those even admitted by the Spaniards, 
namely: Kamon de las Yaguas, Campechuela, and Peralejos, in Santi- 
ago; el Mulato, San Jeronimo, and Las Minas, in Puerto Principe; 
Taguasco, Pelayo, and Cantabria, in Santa Clara. After the last-men- 
tioned engagement Colonel Eego returned his prisoners to the Spanish 
lines, obtaining a receipt for their delivery signed by a lieutenant, of 
which a copy is hereto annexed, marked D. 

This action, in accordance with the spirit of the insurrection, which 
is declared not to be against the Spaniards, of whom many are fighting 
for the independence of the island, but against the Spanish Govern- 
ment, is echoed by the general order of the commander in chief on 
this subject, of which the following is a copy: 

circular of the general in chief. 

General Headquarters of the Army of Liberation, 

Camaguey, August 1, 1895. 

In order to establish in a clear and precise manner the mode of procedure toward 
the chiefs, officers, and soldiers of the monarchy captured in action or operations, 
and toward those who voluntarily surrender to our columns or authorities, I have 
deemed it convenient to order as follows: 

Art. 1. All prisoners captured in action or by the troops of the Republic will be 
immediately liberated and returned to their ranks, unless they volunteer to join 
the army of liberation. The abandoned wounded will be gathered and attended to 
with all care, and the unburied dead interred. 

Art. 2. All persons who shall be arrested, charged with committing the misde- 
meanors in the circular of July 1, by violating or disregarding the said order, will 
be summarily proceeded against. 

Art. 3. Those of the prisoners who are chiefs or officers of the army of the mon- 
archy will be respected and considered according to their rank and treated according 
to the valor with which they may have resisted, and will all be returned to their 
ranks if they so desire. 

Art. 4. Those who volunteer to join the ranks of the republicans, and appear 
before our columns and authorities, ■will have their option in the mode of serving the 
cause of the Republic, either in arms or by more peaceful occupations, civil or 
agricultural pursuit*. 

I communicate this to you for your instruction and for your rigid compliance. 
Country and liberty. 

Maximo Gomez, 

The General in Chief. 

On the part of the Spanish, attention is called to the order prohibit- 
ing newspaper correspondents from entering insurgent lines to prevent 
accurate information being given to the world at large; the order to 
shoot all who supply food or medicines to the insurgents ; the order, 
which in every instance has been carried out, to shoot all officers of the 
Cuban army who may be captured, under which Domingo Mujica, Gil 
Gonzalez, Quirina Amezago, and Acebo have been executed. At the 
recapture of Baire, old men, women, and children were ruthlessly 
slaughtered by the Spanish soldiery, the hospital at Gran Piedra was 



12 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

captured and over seventy wounded and defenseless Cubans were killed ; 
at Cayo Espino peaceful men and women were butchered by Colonel 
Molina and the outrages committed by the troops under Garrido and 
Tejera are legion. The action of convicts, who have been liberated by 
Spain to fight the Cubans under such leadership as that of the notori- 
ous Lola Benitez, who bears the title of colonel, are, as might be ex- 
pected, a blot on any Christian army. 

As to the treatment of Cubans suspected of sympathy with the 
insurgents, we have but to consider the large number of men who have 
lately been arrested and on bare suspicion summarily sent to the Span- 
ish penal colonies for life; some foreign citizens have indeed escaped 
court martial on the interference of their Governments, but it is well 
known that even civil trials at this time are under the absolute control 
of the Government. 

NOT A NEGRO MOVEMENT. 

The Spaniards charge, in order to belittle the insurrection, that it is 
a movement of negroes. It should be remembered that not more than 
one-third of the entire population are of the colored race. As a matter 
of fact, less than one-third of the army are of the colored race. Take, 
for instance, the generals of corps, divisions, and brigades; there are 
but three of the colored race, namely, Antonio and Jose Maceo and 
Augustin Cebreco, and these are mulattoes whose deeds and victories 
have placed them far above the generals of those who pretend to 
despise them. None of the members of the constituent assembly or 
of the Government are of the colored race. The Cubans and the col- 
ored race are as friendly in this war as they were in times of peace, and 
it would indeed be strange if the colored people were not so, as the 
whites fought for and with them in the last revolt, the only successful 
purpose of which was the freedom of the slaves. 

If it be true that this is merely a movement of bandits and negroes 
and adventurers, as the Spaniards assert, why have they not armed the 
Cuban people to fight against the outlaws, or why have not the Cuban 
people themselves volunteered to crush this handful f On the contrary, 
they know that giving those Cubans arms who have them not would be 
but to increase the number of insurgents, and they have therefore sent 
more than 125,000 troops from Spain, mostly conscripts; they have sent 
over forty of their most famous generals; they have increased their 
navy, and virtually, so far as the Cubans are concerned, blockaded the 
entire coast. They have been compelled to make many onerous loans 
to carry on the campaign ; they have increased the fortifications of their 
ports; they have brought torpedoes to protect their harbors, and they 
have even placed armed troops on their mail steamers to prevent their 
capture. 

Besides this large army, they have between 60,000 and 80,000 volun- 
teers to protect their towns. These volunteers, so called, are native 
Spaniards and a branch of the regular army, the service being compul- 
sory; that is, instead of serving in the regular army at home, where 
their entire time must be given up, they volunteer to enter this body 
on emigration to Cuba, where they may follow to a considerable extent 
their occupation; in other words, they correspond to our home guards 
or militia, except that the service is obligatory and that the men can 
not leave the island without permission. 

It is not denied that a large number of what the Spaniards term the 
lower classes are in this revolution, but this is only a proof of how deep 
into the mass of the people have been implanted the seeds of discon- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 18 

tent and of republicanism. This is a movement not like onr last revo- 
lution — the result of the agitation of the wealthy and the educated — 
but one which is the outcome of the popular sentiment of all classes. 

Much surprise has been expressed that with the immense army and 
resources at hand Spain has not been able to crush the insurrection or 
prevent its rapid growth. Aside from the climate, which is deadly to 
the raw, ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-treated, and badly paid Spanish troops, 
the greater part of whom are mere lads, the Spaniards have to divide 
their troops into an army of occupation and another of operation. These 
must necessarily move in considerable numbers, because if compelled 
to tlee without a knowledge of the intricacies of the country they would 
be decimated. 

A Cuban command on dispersion is readily reorganized, as each man 
is his own guide. This is one of the most valuable of Cuban move- 
ments — to disperse as if routed, to rally at a previously agreed point, 
and then to fall upon and surprise the seemingly victorious enemy. The 
Cuban, used to the country and the climate, marches and rides much 
faster than the Spaniard. He can live and thrive, and does so in 
necessity, on food that is death to the Spanish soldier. Moreover in 
a friendly country the movements of the enemy are readily ascertained 
by the Cuban general, who can thus select his own position or evade 
the engagement, while the Spanish are never so well informed and are 
at the mercy of their guides. 

It must be remembered that the Cuban fights for the noblest princi- 
ple of man — independence. That he does so without compulsion or pay, 
but spontaneously and enthusiastically — nay, he fights the battle of 
despair, knowing it is better to be killed thus than to bear the tortures 
of a Spanish prison or to trust himself to the tender mercy of a Span- 
ish commander. On the other hand, the Spanish troops fight by com- 
pulsion and for pay, which is even now months in arrears; they fight 
without faith, for their heart is not with their cause. They know that 
surrender means pardon and good treatment, while fighting may mean 
death. Hundreds of Spanish soldiers have singly or in groups gone 
over to the insurgent lines, being satisfied that they would live there 
under better conditions. 

CHARACTER OF THE WAR. 

There was also an attempt made by the Spanish to brand the Cubans 
with carrying on an uncivilized warfare because of their use of dynamite. 
General Eoloff before using this explosive issued a proclamation warn- 
ing all persons of the danger of traveling by rail. Dynamite has been 
used freely, but only as a substitute for gunpowder in the destruction 
of railroad bridges, trestles, and trains which could be used and were 
used for the transportation of Spanish troops. Of course it is a serious 
loss to Spain to have these railroads destroyed, but no one can seriously 
deny that it is a measure justified by the necessities of war. The use 
of this explosive as a substitute for gunpowder in the operation of 
mines is simply a proof that the Cubans are keeping pace with the 
advance of inventions in the art of war. 

DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. 

The subject, however, which has caused probably the most discussion 
is the order of General Gomez to prevent the grinding of sugar cane 
and in case of the disobedience of said order the destruction of the crop. 



14 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

General Gomez issued a preliminary warning dated July 1, of which 
the following is a copy: 

General Headquarters of the Army of Liberation, 

Najasa, Camaguey, July 1, 1895. 
To the Planters and Owners of Cattle Ranches: 

In accord with the great interests of the revolution for the independence of the 
country and for which we are in arms : 

Whereas all exploitations of any product whatsoever are aids and resources to 
the Government that we are fighting, it is resolved by the general in chief to issue 
this general order throughout the island that the introduction of articles of com- 
merce, as well as beef and cattle, into the towns occupied by the enemy, is abso- 
lutely prohibited. The sugar plantations will stop their labors, and whosoever shall 
attempt to grind the crop notwithstanding this order, will have their cane burned 
and their buildings demolished. The person who, disobeying this order, will try to 
profit from the present situation of affairs, will show by his conduct little respect 
for the rights of the revolution of redemption and therefore shall be considered as 
an enemy, treated as a traitor, and tried as such in case of his capture. 

Maximo Gomez, 

The General in Chief. 

Nevertheless throughout the country preparations were made for the 
grinding of the crop. A peremptory order, of which the following is 
a copy, was then issued on H ovember 6 : 

Headquarters of the Army of Liberation, 

Territory of Sancti Spiritus, November 6, 1895. 

Animated by the spirit of unchangeable resolution in defense of the rights of the 
revolution of redemption of this country of colonists, humiliated and despised by 
Spain, and in harmony with what has been decreed concerning the subject in the 
circular dated the 1st of July, I have ordered the following : 

Article I. That all plantations shall be totally destroyed, their cane and outbuild- 
ings burned, and railroad connections destroyed. 

Art. II. All laborers who shall aid the sugar factories — these sources of supplies 
that we must deprive the enemy of — shall be considered as traitors to their country. 

Art. III. All who are caught in the act, or whose violation of Article II shall be 
proven, shall be shot. Let all chiefs of operations of the army of liberty comply 
with this order, determined to unfurl triumphantly, even over ruin and ashes, the 
flag of the Republic of Cuba. 

In regard to the manner of waging the war, follow the private instructions that I 
have already given. 

For the sake of the honor of our arms and your well-known courage and patriot- 
ism, it is expected that you will strictly comply with the above orders. 

M. Gomez, General in Chief. 

To the chiefs of operations : Circulate this. 

On the 11th of November the following proclamation was issued: 

Headquarters of the Army of Liberation, 

Sancti Spiritus, November 11, 1895. 

To honest men, victims of the torch : 

The painful measure made necessary by the revolution of redemption drenched in 
innocent blood from Hatuey to our own times by cruel and merciless Spain will 
plunge you in misery. As general in chief of the army of liberation it is my duty 
to lead it to victory, without permitting myself to be restrained or terrified, by any 
means necessary to place Cuba in the shortest time in possession of her dearest 
ideal. I therefore place the responsibility for so great a ruin on those who look on 
impassively and force us to those extreme measures which they then condemn like 
dolts and hypocrites that they are. After so many years of supplication, humilia- 
tions, contumely, banishment, and death, when this people, of its own will, has 
arisen in arms, there remains no other solution but to triumph, it matters not what 
means are employed to accomplish it. 

This people can not hesitate between the wealth of Spain and the liberty of Cuba. 
Its greatest crime would be to stain the land with blood without effecting its pur- 
poses because of puerile scruples and fears which do not concur with the character 
of the men who are in the field, challenging the fury of an army which is one of the 
bravest in the world, but which in this war is without enthusiasm or faith, ill fed 
and unpaid. The war did not begin February 24 ; it is about to begin now. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 15 

The -war had to be organized ; it waa necessary to calm and lead into the proper 
channels the revolutionary spirit always exaggerated in the beginning by wild 
enthusiasm. The struggle ought to begin in obedience to a plan and method, more 
or less studied, as the result of the peculiarities of this war. This has already been 
done. Let Spain now send her soldiers to rivet the chains of her slaves ; the chil- 
dren of this land are in the liold, armed with the weapons of liberty. The struggle 
will be terrible, but success will crown the revolution and efforts of the oppressed. 

Maximo Gomez, General in Chief. 

The reasons underlying this measure are the same which caused this 
country to destroy the cotton crop and the baled cotton in the South 
during- the war of the secession. 

The sugar crop is a source of large income to the Spanish Govern- 
ment, directly by tax and export duty, as well as indirectly. The action 
of the insurgents is perfectly justified, because it is simply a blockade, 
so to speak, on land — a prevention of the gathering, and hence the 
export, of the commodity with, naturally, a punishment for the violation 
thereof. 

PROTESTS OF ALIENS. 

Strenuous protests have, too, been made by and on behalf of aliens 
residing in or having property in Cuba. 

It is admitted in civilized warfare that the property of alien resi- 
dents, whether they are in sympathy with the enemy or not, when in 
the track of war, is subject to war's casualties, and that all property 
which might be of aid and comfort to the enemy may be taken or 
destroyed, the commander in the field being the judge of the exigency 
and necessities which dictate such action. This proposition has been 
laid down by the State Department and the Supreme Court of this 
country in the matter of the destruction of cotton in the late war. 

The provision of the constitution of the Eepublic of Cuba that the 
citizens of a country which acknowledges the Cubans as belligerents, 
shall be exempt from the payment of taxes and contributions to the 
Republic, naturally implies that the property of such citizens after the 
granting of belligerency by their country, even though by all the laws 
of war it is contraband and may be seized or destroyed, will be abso- 
lutely respected, and, I have all reason to assert, will be under the 
special protection of the Cuban Government and its army. 

For aliens to ask this protection as a right while their Government 
denies the existence of the belligerency of the Cubans might well be 
considered by the latter as allowing aid and comfort to go to their 
enemy, simply on the expectation that some time in the future the Gov- 
ernment of those aliens may, out of gratitude to the Cubans, acknowl- 
edge, what is after all but a state of fact, belligerency. In the mean- 
time the aid and comfort thus allowed by the Cubans to flow to the 
Spaniards must strengthen the latter and thus draw out the struggle 
or weaken the former. General Gomez explains the importance of this 
measure in the following letter: 

District of Remedios, 
Province of Santa Clara, December 8, 1895. 
To Tomas Estrada Palma. 

My Dear and Esteemed Friend : It is not long since I wrote you, but an oppor- 
tunity oilers by which I may send yon a few words of encouragement and good cheer. 
Rest assured I write you whenever I can, which is not often, owing to the great 
amount of work which at present falls upon my shoulders. I know the pen is 
mightier than the sword, but my mission at present is with the latter; others must 
wield the pen. 

Eight days ago Gen. Antonio Maoeo and myself met and fought the enemy with 
our forces in conjunction. The Spanish column, including infantry, cavalry, and 



16 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

artillery were our superiors in number, but tbe arms of the Cuban Republic were 
again victorious. I have not time at present to go into details of the battle, they 
will follow later. Suffice it to say, Spanish reports to the contrary notwithstanding, 
we won the day. 

Our advance may be slow, but it will be sure and firm. If you hear of our retreat 
remember that it will be temporary and for a purpose. Our faces are turned toward 
the west and nothing will stop us. The result of my observations as we proceed is 
that the Spaniards are in need of almost everything — money, sympathy, soldiers, and 
even leaders who have faith and courage in the righteousness of their cause. 

If Cuban valor and resolution do not fail us, and if the hearts of Cuba's children 
do not weaken, I have every reason to believe that the close of the six months' cam- 
paign now initiated will find everything satisfactorily settled and Cuba free. 

I know that unfavorable comment has been made on some of the methods we have 
been forced to employ in this revolution, but it will not do to listen to the complaints 
of the superficial and irresponsible. No sugar crop must be made this winter under 
any circumstances or for any amount of money. It is the source from which the 
enemy still hopes and dreams of obtaining its revenue. To prevent that end, for the 
good of our country, has been and shall be our programme. 

We are Cubans and have one great aim in view, one glorious object to obtain — the 
freedom of our country and liberty. It is of more importance to us than glory, pub- 
lic applause, or anything else. Everything else will follow in time. I have never 
believed in or advised a sanguinary revolution, but it must be a radical one. First 
of all we must triumph ; toward that end the most effective means, although they 
may appear harsh, must be employed. 

There is nothing so bad, so dishonorable, so inexcusable, in the eyes of the world 
as failure. Victory is within our reach. To hesitate, to delay it, to endanger it now, 
would be stupid, would be cowardly, would be criminal. We will succeed first; the 
applause of the world will follow. To do otherwise would be not to love one's country. 
I have never felt more confident than at the present moment. You can rest assured 
that Cuba will soon achieve her-absolute independence. 

Ever your true friend, Maximo Gomez. 

As I have through various sources been approached on this subject 
in behalf of property of American citizens on the island, and as I know 
the cordial friendship which the Cubans bear to the Government and 
people of the United States of America, feeling assured that this 
country, from its very history, must likewise feel a deep sympathy with 
a people who are treading in their footsteps, I have written to the 
Government of the Republic of Cuba the following letter: 

New York, December 23, 1895. 
Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, 

President of the Cuban Bepublic. 

My Distinguished Fellow-Countryman : There have been many complaints 
made to me from various sources that the property of citizens of the United States 
of North America has been destroyed by our army of liberation in Cuba under the 
order of our distinguished general in chief, Maximo Gomez. I know very well how 
you and all my countrymen feel toward this Republic, and that you desire to do 
everything in your power to demonstrate your friendship, and I deem it my duty to 
communicate the above facts to you so that you may consider the matter carefully 
and thoroughly ; at the same time I know that many Spaniards intend to transfer 
their property, as some have done already, to American citizens or companies espe- 
cially organized for their purposes, in case that you should, before or after receiving 
the rights of belligerents, take active measures for the protection of North American 
interests. 

I say thiB because I am sure that, at least after the granting of belligerency, you 
will do your utmost to guard the interests of the citizens of a country which warmly 
sympathizes with us in our present struggle. 

Hoping that you will give this subject your most thoughtful consideration, I remain 
your devoted friend, for country and liberty, 

T. Estrada Palma. 

In view of the history of this revolution as herein stated, in view of 
the causes which led to it, its rapid growth, its successes in arms, the 
establishment, operation, and resources of the Government of the Cuban 
Republic, the organization, number, and discipline of its army, the 
contrast in the treatment of prisoners to that of the enemy, the terri- 
tory in its control and subject to the carrying out of its decrees, of 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 17 

the futility of the attempts of the Spanish Governm.ai'. to crush the 
revolution, in spite of the immense increase of its army in Cuba and 
of its blockade and the many millions spent for that purpose, the 
cruelties which on the part of the Spanish have especially characterized 
this sanguinary and fiercely conducted war, and the damage to the in- 
terests of the citizens of this country under the present conditions, I, 
as the duly accredited representative, in the name of the Cuban people 
in arms who have fought singly and alone against the monarchy of 
Spain for nearly a year, in the heart of a continent devoted to repub- 
lican institutions, in the name of justice, in the name of humanity, in 
the name of liberty, petition you, and through you the Government of 
the United States of America, to accord the rights of belligerency to a 
people fighting for their absolute independence. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

T. Estrada Palma. 
The Hon. Richard Olney, 

Secretary of State of the United States of America, 



A 

CUBA v. SPAIN. 

War is a dire necessity. But when a people has exhausted all human means of 
persuasiou to obtain from an unjust oppressor a remedy for its ills, if it apeals as a 
last resource to force in order to repel the persistent aggression which constitutes 
tyranny, this people is justified before its own conscience and before the tribunal of 
nations. 

Such is the case of Cuba in its wars against Spain. No metropolis has ever been 
harsher or more obstinately harassing ; none has ever exploited a colony with more 
greediness and less foresight than Spain. No colony has ever been more prudent, 
more long-suffering, more cautious, more persevering than Cuba in its purpose of 
asking for its rights by appealing to the lessons of experience and political wisdom. 
Only driven by desperation has the people of Cuba taken up arms, and having done 
so, it displays as much heroism in the hour of danger as it had shown good judgment 
in the hour of deliberation. 

The history of Cuba during the present century is a long series of rebellions ; but 
every one of these was preceded by a peaceful struggle for its rights — a fruitless 
struggle because of the obstinate blindness of Spain. 

There were patriots in Cuba from the beginning of this century, such as Presbyter 
Caballero and Don Francisco Arango, who called the metropolitan Government's 
attention to the evils of the colony, and pointed to the remedy by pleading for the 
commercial franchises required by its economical organization, and for the inter- 
vention of the natives in its government, not only as a right, but also for politi- 
cal expediency, in view of the long distance between the colony and the home gov- 
ernment, and the grave difficulties with which it had to contend. The requirements 
of the war with the continental colonies, which were tired of Spanish tyranny, com- 
pelled the metropolitan Government to grant a certain measure of commercial liberty 
to the Island of Cuba ; a temporary concession which spread prosperity throughout 
its territory, but which was not sufficient to open the eyes of the Spanish statesmen. 
On the contrary, prompted by suspicion and mistrust of the Americans, they began 
by curtailing, and shortly after abrogated the limited administrative powers then 
possessed by some of the corporations in Cuba, such as the "Junta de Fomento" — 
(a board for the encouragement of internal improvements). 

As if this were not enough, the Cubans were deprived of thelittle show of political 
intervention they had in public affairs. By a simple royal decree in 1837 the small 
representation of Cuba in the Spanish Cortes was suppressed, and all the powers of 
the Government were concentrated in the hands of the captain-general, on whom 
authority was conferred to act as the governor of a city in a state of siege. This 
implied that the captain-general, residing in Habana, was master of the life and 
property of every inhabitant of the island of Cuba. This meant that Spain declared 
a permanent state of war against a peaceful and defenseless people, 

8 



18 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Cuba saw its most illustrious sons, such as Heredia and Saco, wander in exile 
throughout the free American Continent. Cuba saw as many of the Cubans as dared 
to love liberty and declare it by act or word die on the scaffold, such as Joaquin de 
Aguero and Placido. Cuba saw the product of its people's labor confiscated by 
iniquitous fiscal laws imposed by its masters from afar. Cuba saw the administra- 
tion of justice in the hands of foreign magistrates, who acted at the will or the whim 
of its rulers. Cuba suffered all tbe outrages that can humiliate a conquered people, 
in the name and by the work of a Government that sarcastically calls itself paternal. 
Is it to be wondered, then, that an uninterrupted era of conspiracies and uprisings 
should have been inaugurated? Cuba in its despair took up arms in 1850 and 1851, 
conspired again in 1855, waged war in 1868, in 1879, in 1885, and is fighting now 
since the 24th of February of the present year. 

But at the same time Cuba has never ceased to ask for justice and redress. Its 
people, before shouldering the rifle, pleaded for their rights. Before the pronuncia- 
mento of Aguero and the invasions of Lopez, Saco, in exile, exposed the dangers of 
Cuba to the Spanish statesmen, and pointed to the remedy. Other farsighted men 
seconded him in the colony. They denounced the cancer of slavery, the horrors of 
the traffic in slaves, the corruption of the officeholders, the abuses of the Government, 
the discontent of the people with their forced state of political tutelage. No atten- 
tion was given to them, and this brought on the first armed conflicts. 

Before the formidable insurrection of 1868, which lasted ten years, the reform 
party, which included the most enlightened, wealthy, and influential Cubans, 
exhausted all the resources within their reach to induce Spaiu to initiate a healthy 
change in her Cuban policy. The party started the publication of periodicals in 
Madrid and in the island, addressed petitions, maintained a great agitation through- 
out the country, and having siicceeded in leading the Spanish Government to make 
an inquiry into the economical, political, and social condition of Cuba, they pre- 
sented a complete plan of government which satisfied public requirements as well as 
the aspirations of the people. The Spanish Government disdainfully cast aside the 
proposition as useless, increased taxation, and proceeded to its exaction with extreme 
severity. 

It was then that the ten-year war broke out. Cuba, almost a pigmy compared 
with Spain, fought like a giant. Blood ran in torrents. Public wealth disappeared 
in a bottomless abyss. Spain lost 200,000 men. Whole districts of Cuba were left 
almost entirely without their male population. Seven hundred millions were 
spent to feed that conflagration — a conflagration that tested Cuban heroism, but 
which could not touch the hardened heart of Spain. The latter could not subdue 
the bleeding colony, which had no longer strength to prolong the struggle with any 
prospect of success. Spain proposed a compact which was a snare and a deceit. 
She granted to Cuba the liberties of Puerto Rico, which enjoyed none. 

On this deceitful ground was laid the new situation, throughout which has run 
a current of falsehood and hypocrisy. Spain, whose mind had not changed, has- 
tened to change the name of things. The capitan-general was called governor- 
general. The royal decrees took the name of authorizations. The commercial 
monopoly of Spain was named coasting trade. The right of banishment was trans- 
formed into the law of vagrancy. The brutal attacks of defenseless citizens were 
called "componte." The abolition of constitutional guarantees became the law of 
public order. Taxation without the consent or knowledge of the Cuban people was 
changed into the law of estimates (budget) voted by the representatives of Spain ; 
that is, of European Spain. 

The painful lesson of the ten-year war had been entirely lost on Spain. Instead 
of inaugurating a redeeming policy that would heal the recent wounds, allay public 
anxiety, and quench the thirst for justice felt by the people, who were desirous to 
enjoy their natural rights, the metropolis, while lavish in promises of reform, per- 
sisted in carrying on unchanged its old and crafty system, the groundwork of which 
continues to be the same, namely: To exclude every native Cuban from every office 
that could give him any effective influence and intervention in public affairs; the 
ungovernable exploitation of the colonists' labor for the benefit of Spanish commerce 
and Spanish bureaucracy, both civil and military. To carry out the latter purpose it 
was necessary to maintain the former at any cost. 

I. 

In order to render the native Cuban powerless in his own country, Spain, legislat- 
ing for Cuba without restriction as it does, had only to give him an electoral law so 
artfully framed as to accomplish two objects: First, to reduce the number of voters; 
second, to give always a majority to the Spaniards; that is, to the European colo- 
nists, notwithstanding that the latter represent only 9.3 per cent of the total popu- 
lation of Cuba. To this effect it made the electoral right dependent on the payment 
of a very high poll tax, which proved the more burdensome as the war had ruined tbe 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 19 

larger number of Cuban proprietors. In this way it succeeded in restricting the right 
of suffrage to only 53,000 inhabitants in an island which has a population of 1,600,- 
000 ; that is to say, to the derisive proportion of 3 per cent of the total number of 
inhabitants. 

In order to give a decided preponderance to the Spanish European element, 
the electoral law has ignored the practice generally observed in those coun- 
tries where the right to vote depends on the paymeut of a poll tax, and has 
afforded all the facilities to acquire the electoral privilege to industry, com- 
merce, and public officials, to the detriment of the territorial property (the 
ownership of real estate). To accomplish this, while the rate of the territorial 
tax is reduced to 2 per cent, an indispensable measure, in view of the ruin 
ous condition of the landowners, the exorbitant contribution of $25 is required 
from those who would be electors as freeholders. The law has, moreover, thrown 
the doors wide open for the perpetration of fraud by providing that the simple 
declaration of the head of a commercial house is sufficient to consider all its 
employees as partners, having, therefore, the right to vote. This has given us firms 
with thirty or more partners. By this simple scheme almost all the Spaniards resid- 
ing in Cuba are turned into electors, despite the explicit provisions of the law. 
Thus it comes to pass that the municipal district of Giiines, with a population of 
13,000 inhabitants, only 500 of which are Spaniards and Canary Islanders, shows on 
its electoral list the names of 32 native Cubans and of 400 Spaniards — only 0.25 per 
cent of the Cuban to 80 per cent of the Spanish population. 

But, as if this were not enough, a so-called permanent commission of provincial 
deputations decides every controversy that may arise as to who is to be included 
in or excluded from the list of electors, and the members of this commission are 
appointed by the Governor-General. It is unnecessary to say that its majority has 
always been devoted to the Government. In case any elector considers himself 
wronged by the decision of the permanent commission he can appeal to the " audi- 
encia" (higher court) of the district, but the "audiencias" are almost entirely 
made up of European magistrates; they are subject to the authority of the Gov- 
ernor-General, being mere political tools in his hands. As a conclusive instance of the 
manner in which those tribunals do justice to the claims of the Cuban electors, it 
will be sufficient to cite a case which occurred in Santa Clara in 1892, where 1,000 
fully qualified liberal electors were excluded at one time, for the simple omission to 
state their names at the end of the act presented by the elector who headed the claim. 
In more than one case has the same "audiencia" applied two different criterions to 
identical cases. The "audiencia" of Havana, in 1887, ignoring the explicit provisions 
of the law, excused the employees from the condition of residence, a condition that the 
same tribunal exacted before. The same "audiencia" in 1885 declared that the contri- 
butions to the State and to the municipality were accumulative, and in 1887 decided 
the opposite. This inconsistency had for its object to expunge from the lists hun- 
dreds of Cuban electors. In this way the Spanish Government and tribunals have 
endeavored to teach respect for the law and for the practice of wholesome electoral 
customs to the Cuban colonists. 

It will be easily understood now why on some occasions the Cuban representa- 
tion in the Spanish Parliament has been made up of only three deputies, and in 
the most favorable epochs the number of Cuban representatives has not exceeded 
six. Three deputies in a body of four hundred and thirty members! The 
genuine representation of Cuba has not reached sometimes 0.96 per cent of the total 
number of members of the Spanish congress. The great majority of the Cuban dep- 
utation has always consisted of Spanish peninsulars. In this manner the ministers 
of "ultramar" (ministers of the colonies), whenever they have thought necessary to 
give an honest or decent appearance to their legislative acts by an alleged majority 
of Cuban votes, could always command the latter — that is, the peninsulars. 

As regards the representation in the senate, the operation has been more simple 
still. The qualifications required to be a senator have proved to be an almost abso- 
lute prohibition to the Cubans. In fact, to take a seat in the higher house it is 
necessary to have been president of that body or of congress, or a minister of 
the crown, or a bishop, or a grandee of Spain, a lieutenant-general, a vice-admiral, 
ambassador, minister plenipotentiary, counselor of state, judge, or attorney-general 
of the supreme court, of the court of accounts, etc. No Cuban has ever filled any of 
the above positions, and scarcely two or three are grandees. The only natives of 
Cuba who can be senators are those who have been deputies in three different Con- 
gresses, or who are professors and have held for four years a university chair, pro- 
vided that they have an income of $1,500; or those who have a title of nobility, or 
have been deputies, provincial deputies, or mayors in towns of over 20,000 inhab- 
itants, if they have in addition an income of $4,000, or pay a direct contribution of 
$800 to the treasury. This will increase in one or two dozen the number of Cubans 
qualified to be senators. 

In this manner has legislative work, so far as Cuba is concerned, turned out to be 
a farce. The various Governments have legislated for the island as they pleased. The 



20 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

representatives of the peninsular provinces did not even take the trouble of attend- 
ing the sessions of the Cortes when Cuban affairs were to be dealt with; and there 
was an instance when the estimates (budget) for the Great, Antille were discussed 
in the presence of less than thirty deputies, and a single one of the ministers, the 
minister of "ultramar" (session of April 3, 1880). 

Through the contrivance of the law, as well as through the irregularities com- 
mitted and consented in its application, have the Cubans been deprived also of rep- 
resentation in the local corporations to which they were entitled, and in many cases 
they have been entirely excluded from them. When, despite the legalized obstacles 
and the partiality of those in power, they have obtained some temporary majority, 
the Government has always endeavored and succeeded in making their triumph null 
and void. Only once did the home-rule party obtain a majority in the provincial 
deputation of Havana, and then the Governor-General appointed from among the 
Spaniards a majority of the members of the permanent; commission. Until that time 
this commission had been of the same political complexion as the majority of the 
deputation. By such proceedings have the Cubans been gradually expelled, even 
from the municipal bodies. Suffice it to say that the law provides that the derramas 
(assessments) be excluded from the computation of the tributary quotas, notwith- 
standing that they constitute the heaviest burden upon the municipal taxpayer. 
And the majorities, consisting of Spaniards, take good care to make this burden fall 
with heavier weight upon the Cuban proprietor. Thus the latter has to bear a heavier 
taxation with less representation. 

This is the reason why the scandalous case has occurred lately of not a single 
Cuban having a seat in the "Ayuntamiento" (board of aldermen) of Havana. In 
1891 the Spaniards predominated in thirty-one out of thirty-seven "Ayuntamientos" 
in the province of Havana. In that of Giiines, with a population of 12,500 Cuban 
inhabitants, not a single one of the latter was found among its councilors. In the 
same epoch there were only three Cuban deputies in the provincial deputation of 
Havana; two in that of Matanzas, and three in that of Santa Clara. And these are 
the most populous regions in the Island of Cuba. 

As, on the other hand, the government of the metropolis appoints the officials of 
the colony, all the lucrative, influential, and representative offices are secured to the 
Spaniards from Europe. The Governor-General, the regional and provincial gov- 
ernors, the " in tendentes," comptrollers, auditors, treasurers, chiefs of communica- 
tions, chiefs of the custom-houses, chiefs of administration, presidents and vice- 
presidents of the Spanish bank, secretaries of the Government, presiding judges of 
the " audiencia," presidents of tribunal, magistrates, attorneys-general, archbishops, 
bishops, canons, pastors of rich parishes — all, with very rare exceptions, are Span- 
iards from Spain. The Cubans are found only as minor clerks in the Government 
offices, doing all the work and receiving the smallest salaries. 

From 1878 to this date there have been twenty governors in the province of Matan- 
zas. Eighteen were Spaniards and two Cubans. But one of these, Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Acosta, was an army officer in the service of Spain, who had fought against his 
countrymen; and the other, Senor Gonzalez Mufioz, is a bureaucrat. During the 
same period there has been only one native Cuban acting as governor in the province 
of Havana, Senor Rodriguez Batista, who spent all his life in Spain, where he made 
his administrative career. In the other provinces there has never, probably, been a 
single governor born in the country. 

In 1887 there was created a council, or board of ultramar, under the minister of the 
colonies. Not a single Cuban has ever been found among its members. On the other 
hand, such men as Generals Arminan and PandohaA r e held positions in it. 

The predominance of the Government goes further still. It weighs with all its 
might upon the local corporations. There are deputations in the provinces, and not 
only are their powers restricted and their resources scanty, but the Governor-General 
appoints their presidents and all the members of the permanent commissions. There 
are " ayuntamienfcos" elected in accordance with the reactionary law of 1877, restricted 
and curtailed as applied to Cuba by Senor Canovas. But the Governor-General 
appoints the mayors, who may not belong to the corporation, and the governor of 
the province appoints the secretaries. The Government reserves, moreover, the 
right to remove the mayors, of replacing them, and of suspending the councillors 
and the " ayuntamientos," partly or in a body. It has frequently made use of this 
right for electoral purposes, to the detriment always of the Cubans. 

As may be seen, the crafty policy of Spain has closed every avenue through which 
redress might be obtained. All the powers are centered in the Government of 
Madrid and its delegates in the colony; and in order to give her despotism a slight 
varnish of a representative regime she has contrived with her laws to secure com- 
plaisant majorities in the pseudoelective bodies. To accomplish this purpose she 
has relied upon the European immigrants, who have always supported the Govern- 
ment of the metropolis in exchange for lasting privileges. The existence of a Spanish 
party, as that of an English party at one time in Canada, has been the foundation of 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 21 

Spanish rule in Cuba. Thus, through the instrumentality of the laws and the Gov- 
ernment, a regime of castes has been enthroned there, with its outcome of monopolies, 
corruption, immorality, and hatred. The political contest there, far from being the 
fruitful clash of opposite ideas, or the opposition of men representing different ten- 
dencies, but all seeking a social improvement, has been only a struggle between hos- 
tile factions — the conilict between infuriated foes which precedes an open war. The 
Spanish resident has always seen a threat in the most timid protest of the Cuban — 
an attack upon the privileged position on which his fortune, his influence, and his 
power are grounded, and he is always willing to stifle it with insult and persecution. 

II. 

What use the Spanish Government has made of this power is apparent in the three- 
fold spoliation to which it has submitted the Island of Cuba. Spain has not, in fact, 
a colonial policy. In the distant lands she has subdued by force Spain has sought 
nothing but immediate riches, and these it has wrung by might from the compulsory 
labor of the natives. For this reasou Spain to-day in Cuba is only a parasite. Spain 
exploits the Island of Cuba through its fiscal regime, through its commercial regime, 
and through its bureaucratic regime. These are the three forms of official spoliation, 
but they are not the only forms of spoliation. 

When the war of 1878 came to an end two-thirds of the island were completely 
ruined. The other third, the population of which had remained peaceful, was 
abundantly productive ; but it had to face the great economical change involved 
in the impending abolition of slavery. Slavery had received its deathblow at the 
hands of the insurrection, and Cuban insurrectionists succeeded at the close of the war 
in securing its eventual abolition. Evidently it would have been a wholesome and 
provident policy to lighten the fiscal burdens of a country in such a condition. 
Spain was only bent on making Cuba pay the cost of the war. The metropolis over- 
whelmed the colony with enormous budgets, reaching as high a figure as $46,000,000, 
and this only to cover the obligations of the state, or rather to fill the unfathomable 
gulf left by the wastefulness and plunder of the civil and military administration 
during the years of war, and to meet the expenses of the military occupation of the 
country. Here follow a few figures: The budget for the fiscal year of 1878 to 1879 
amounted to $46,591,000 ; that of 1879 to 1880 to an equal sum ; that of 1882 to 1883 to 
$35,860,000; that of 1883 to 1884 to $34,180,000 ; that of 1884 to 1885 to the same sum; 
that of 1885 to 1886 to $34,169,000. For the remaining years, to the present time, the 
amount of the budget has been about $26,000,000, this being the figure for 1893 to 
1894, and to be the same by prorogation for the current fiscal year. 

The gradual reduction that may be noted was not the result of a desire to reduce 
the overwhelming burdens that weigh upon the country. It was imposed by neces- 
sity. Cuba was not able by far to meet such a monstrous exaction. It was a con- 
tinuous and threatening deficit that imposed these reductions. In the first of the 
above-named years the revenue was $8,000,000 short of the budget or appropria- 
tions. In the second year the deficit reached the sum of $20,000,000. In 1883 it was 
nearly $10,000,000. In the following years the deficits averaged nearly $4,500,000. 
At present the accumulated amount of all these deficits reaches the sum of $100,000,000. 

As a consequence of such a reckless and senseless financial course, the debt of Cuba 
has been increased to a fabulous sum. In 1868 we owed $25,000,000. When the pres- 
ent war broke out our debt, it was calculated, reached the net sum of $190,000,000. 
On the 31st of July of the current year the Island of Cuba was reckoned to owe 
$295,707,264 in bulk. Considering its population, the debt of Cuba exceeds that of 
all the other American countries, including the United States. The interest on this 
debt imposes a burden of $9.79 on each inhabitant. The French people, the most 
overburdened in this respect, owe only $6.30 per inhabitant. 

This enormous debt, contracted and saddled upon the country without its knowl- 
edge; this heavy load that grinds it and does not permit its people to capitalize 
their income, to foster its improvements, or even to entertain its industries, con- 
stitutes one of the most iniquitous forms of spoliation the island has to bear. In 
it are included a debt of Spain to the United States ; the expenses incurred by 
Spain when she occupied Santo Domingo; those for the invasion of Mexico in alli- 
ance with France and England; the expenditures for her hostilities against Peru; 
the money advanced to the Spanish treasury during its recent Carlist wars; and all 
that Spain has spent to uphold its domination in Cuba and to cover the lavish 
expenditures of its administration since 1868. Not a cent of this enormous sum 
has been spent in Cuba to advance the work of improvement and civilization. It 
has not contributed to build a single kilometer of highway or of railroad, nor to 
erect a single light-house or deepen a single port; it has not built one asylum or 
opened one public school. Such a heavy burden has been left to the future genera- 
tions without a single compensation or benefit. 

But the naked figures of the Cuban budgets and of the Cuban debt tell very little 
in regard to their true importance and signification as machines to squeeze out the 



22 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

substance of a people's labor. It is necessary to examine closer the details of these 
accounts and expenditures. 

Those of Cuba, according to the last budgets or appropriations, amount to $26,411,- 
314, distributed as follows : 

General obligations $12, 884, 549. 55 

Department of justice (courts, etc.) 1,006,308.51 

Department of war 5, 918, 598. 16 

Department of the treasury 727, 892. 45 

Department of the navy 1, 091, 969. 65 

Government, administration 4, 035, 071. 43 

Interior improvements (fomento) 746, 925. 15 

There are in Cuba 1,631,687 inhabitants according to the last census, that of 1887. 
That is to say, that this budget burdens them in the proportion of $16.18 for each 
inhabitant. The Spaniards in Spain pay only — 42.06 pesetas per head. Eeducing 
the Cuban dollars to pesetas at the exchange rate of $95 for 500 pesetas, there 
results that the Cubans have to pay a tribute of 85.16 pesetas for each inhabitant; 
more than double the amount a Spaniard has to pay in his European country. 

As shown above, most of this excessive burden is to cover entirely unproductive 
expenditures. The debt consumes 40.89 per cent of the total amount. The defense 
of the country against its own native inhabitants, the only enemies who threaten 
Spain, including the cost of the army, the navy, the civil guard, and the guardians 
of public order, takes 36.59 per cent. There remains for all the other expenditures 
required by civilized life 22.52 per cent. 

And of this percentage the State reserves to us, what a liberality ! 2.75 per cent to 
prepare for the future and develop the resources of the country ! 

Let us see now what Spain has done to permit at least the development of natural 
wealth and the industry of a country impoverished by this fiscal regime, the work 
of cupidity, incompetency, and immorality. Let us see whether that nation has left 
at least some vitality to Cuba, in order to continue exploiting it with some profit. 

The economical organization of Cuba is of the simplest kind. It produces to 
export, and imports almost everything it consumes. In view of this, it is evident 
that all that Cuba required from the State was that it should not hamper its work 
with excessive burdens, nor hinder its commercial relations ; so that it could buy 
cheap where it suited her and sell her products with profit. Spain has done all the 
contrary. She has treated the tobacco as an enemy; she has loaded the sugar with 
excessive imposts ; she has shackled with excessive and abusive excise duties the cat- 
tle-raising industry ; and with her legislative doings and undoings she has thrown 
obstacles in the way of the mining industry. And to cap the climax, she has tightly 
bound Cuba in the network of a monstrous tariff and a commercial legislation which 
subjects the colony, at the end of the nineteenth century, to the ruinous monopoly 
of the producers and merchants of certain regions of Spain, as in the halcyon days of 
the colonial compact. 

The district which produces the best tobacco in the world, the famous Vuelta 
Abajo, lacks every means of transportation afforded by civilization to foster and 
increase the value of its products. No roads, no bridges, or even ports, are found 
there. The state in Cuba collects the taxes, but does not invest them for the bene- 
fit of any industry. On the other hand, those foreign countries desirous of acquir- 
ing the rich tobacco-raising industry have closed their markets to our privileged 
product by imposing upon it excessive import duties, while the Spanish Government 
burdens its exportation from our ports with a duty of $1.80 on every thousand cigars. 
Is this not a stroke of actual insanity? 

Everybody is aware of the tremendous crisis through which the sugar industry 
has been passing for some years, owing to the rapid development of the production 
of this article everywhere. Every Government has hastened to protect its own by 
more or less empirical measures. This is not the place to judge them. What is 
important is to recall the fact that they have endeavored to place the threatened 
industry in the best condition to withstand the competition. What has Spain done in 
order, if not to maintain the strong position held before by Cuba, at least to enable the 
colony to carry on the competition with its every day more formidable rivals ? Spain 
pays bounties to the sugar produced within its own territory, and closes its markets 
to the Cuban sugar by imposing upon it an import duty of $6.20 per hundred kilo- 
grams. It has been calculated that a hundredweight of Cuban sugar is overbur- 
dened when reaching the Barcelona market with 143 per cent of its value. The 
Spanish Government oppresses the Cuban producer with every kind of exactions; 
taxes the introduction of the machinery that is indispensable for the production of 
sugar, obstructs its transportation by imposing heavy taxes on the railroads, and 
winds up the work by exacting another contribution called "industrial duty," and 
still another for loading or shipping, which is equivalent to an export duty. 

As a last stroke, Spain has reenforced the commercial laws of June 30 and July 20, 
1882, virtually closing the ports of Cuba to foreign commerce, and establishing the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 23 

monopoly of the peninsular producers, without any compensation to the colony. The 
apparent object of these laws was to establish the "cabotaje" (coasting trade) 
between Cuba and Spain. By the former all the Cuban products were admitted free 
of duty in the Spanish Peninsula, excepting, however, the tobacco, rum, sugar, 
cocoa, and coffee, which remained temporarily burdened. By the latter the duties 
on the importations from Spain in Cuba were to be gradually reduced through a 
period of ten years, until, in 1892, they were entirely abolished. The result, 
however, has been tbat the temporary duties on the principal, almost the 
only, Cuban products have remained undisturbed until now, and the duties 
on the Spanish products have disappeared. The "cabotage" (coasting trade) 
is carried on from Spain to Cuba, but not from Cuba to Spain. The Spanish 
products pay no duties in Cuba ; the Cuban products pay heavy duties in Spain. 
As at the same time the differential tariffs which overburdened with excessive 
duties the foreign products have been retained, the unavoidable consequence has 
been to give the Cuban market entirely to the Peninsula producers. In order to 
have an idea as to how far the monopoly of Spain goes, it will be sufficient to point 
to the fact that the burdens which many of the foreign articles have to bear exceed 
2,000 and even 2,300 per cent, as compared with those borne by the Spanish products. 
One hundred kilograms of cotton prints pay a duty, if Spanish, of $26.65; if foreign, 
$47.26. One hundred kilograms of knitted goods pay, if from Spain, $10.95; if from 
a foreign country, $195. One thousand kilograms of bags for sugar, when they are 
or are represented to be Spanish, pay $4.69; if from other country, $82.50. One hun- 
dred kilograms of cassimere, if it is a Spanish product, pay $15.47; if foreign, $300. 

Still, if Spain was a flourishing industrial country, and produced the principal 
articles required by Cuba for the consumption of its people, or for developing and 
fostering its industries, the evil, although always great, would be a lesser one. But 
everybody knows the backwardness of the Spanish industries, and the inability of 
Spain to supply Cuba with the products she requires for her consumption and indus- 
tries. The Cubans have to consume or use Spanish articles of inferior quality or 
pay exorbitant prices for foreign goods. The Spanish merchants have found, more- 
over, a new source of fraud in the application of these antiquated and iniquitous laws ; 
it consists in nationalizing foreign products for importation into Cuba. 

As the mainspring of this senseless commercial policy is to support the monopoly 
of Spanish commerce, when Spain has been compelled to deviate from it to a certain 
extent by an international treaty, it has done so reluctantly and in the anxious 
expectation of an opportunity to nullify its own promises. This explains the acci- 
dental history of the reciprocity treaty with the United States, which was received 
with joy by Cuba, obstructed by the Spanish administration, and prematurely 
abolished by the Spanish Government as soon as it saw an opportunity. 

The injury done to Cuba, and the evil effects produced by this commercial legisla- 
tion, are beyond calculation; its effects have been material losses which have engen- 
dered profound discontent. The "Circulo de Hacendados y Agricultores," the 
wealthiest corporation of the Island, last year passed judgment on these commer- 
cial laws in the following severe terms : 

"It would be impossible to explain, should the attempt be made, what is the sig- 
nification of the present commercial laws as regards any economical or political 
plan or system; because, economically, they aim at the destruction of public wealth, 
and, politically, they are the cause of inextinguishable discontent, and contain the 
germs of grave dissensions." 

But Spain has not taken heed of this ; her only care has been to keep the producers 
and merchants of such rebellious provinces as Catalonia contented, and to satisfy 
its military men and bureaucrats. 

For the latter is reserved the best part of the booty taken from Cuba. High sal- 
aries and the power of extortion for the officeholders sent to the colony; regular trib- 
utes for the politicians who uphold them in the metropolis. The Governor-General is 
paid a salary of $50,000, in addition to a palace, a country house as a summer resort, 
servants, coaches, and a fund for secret expenses at his disposal. The director- 
general of the treasury receives a salary of $18,500. The archbishop of Santiago and 
the bishop of Havana, $18,000 each. The commander-general of the "Apostadero" 
(naval station), $16,392. The general segundo cabo (second in command of the 
Island), and the president of the "audiencia," $15,000 each. The governor of Havana 
and the secretary of the General Government, $8,000 each. The postmaster-general, 
$5,000. The collector for the Havana custom-house, $4,000. The manager of lotter- 
ies, the same salary. The chief clerks of administration of the first class receive 
$5,000 each; those of the second class, $4,000, and those of the third class, $3,000 
each. The major-generals are paid $7,500; the brigadier-generals, $4,500, and when 
in command, $5,000; the colonels, $3,450, and this salary is increased when they are 
in command of a regiment. The captains of "navio" (the largest men-of-war) receive 
$6,300; the captains of frigate, $4,560; the lieutenants of "navio" of the the first 
class, $3,370. All these functionaries are entitled to free lodgings and domestic serv- 



24 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

ants. Then follows the numberless crowd of minor officials, all well provided for, 
and with great facilities better to provide for themselves. 

At the office of the minister of "ultrainar" (of the colonies), who resides in 
Madrid, and to whom $96,800 a year are assigned from the treasury of Cuba — at that 
office begins the saturnalia in which the Spanish bureaucrats indulge with the riches 
of Cuba. Sometimes through incapacity, but more frequently for plunder, the 
money exacted from the Cuban taxpayers is unscrupulously and irresponsibly 
squandered. It has been demonstrated that the debt of Cuba has been increased in 
$50,232,500 through Minister Fabie's incapacity. At the time this minister was in 
power the Spanish Bank disposed of twenty millions from the Cuban treasury, which 
were to be carried in account current at the disposal of the minister for the famous oper- 
ation of with drawing the paper currency. Cubapaidthe interest on these millions, and 
continued paying it all the time they were utilized by the bank. Minister Romero 
Robledo took at one time (in 1892) $1,000,000 belonging to the treasury of Cuba from 
the vaults of the Bank of Spain, and lent it to the Transatlantic Company, of which 
he was a stockholder. This was done in defiance of law and without any authori- 
zation whatever. The minister was threatened with prosecution, but he haughtily 
replied that, if prosecuted, all his predecessors from every political party would 
have to accompany him to the court. That threat came to nothing. 

In June of 1890 there was a scandalous debate in the Spanish Cortes, in which 
some of the frauds committed upon the Cuban treasury were, not for the first time, 
brought to light. It was then made public that $6,500,000 had been abstracted from 
the "caja de depositos," notwithstanding that the safe was locked with three 
keys, and each one was in the possession of a different functionary. Then it was 
known that, under the pretext of false vouchers for transportation and fictitious 
bills for provisions, during the previous war, defalcations had been found afterwards 
amounting to $22,811,516. In the month of March of the same year General Pando 
affirmed that the robberies committed through the issue of warrants by the "junta 
de la deuda" (board of public debt) exceeded, the sum of $12,000,000. 

These are only a few of the most salient facts. The large number of millions men- 
tioned above represent only an insignificant part of what a venal administration, sure 
of impunity, exacts from Cuban labor. The network of artful schemes to cheat the 
Cuban taxpayer and defraud the State covers everything. Falsification of docu- 
ments, embezzlement of revenues, bargains with delinquent debtors, exaction of 
higher dues from inexperienced peasants, delays in the dispatch of judicial proceed- 
ings in order to obtain a more or less considerable gratuity ; such are the artful means 
daily employed to empty the purse of the taxpayer and to divert the public funds into 
the pockets of the functionaries. 

These disgraceful transactions have more than once been brought out to light; 
more than once have the prevaricators been pointed out. Is there any record of any 
of them having ever been punished? 

In August of 1887 General Marin entered the custom-house of Havana at the head 
of a military force, besieged and occupied it, investigated the operations carried on 
there, and discharged every employee. The act caused a great stir, but not a single 
one of the officials was indicted or suffered a further punishment. There were, in 
1891, 350 officials indicted in Cuba for committing fraud; not one of them was 
punished. 

But how could they be punished? Every official who comes to Cuba has an influ- 
ential patron in the court of Madrid for whose protection he pays with regularity. 
This is a public secret. General Salamanca gave it out in plain words, and before 
and after General Salamanca all Spain knew and knows it. The political leaders 
are well known who draw the highest income from the officeholders of Cuba, who 
are, as a matter of course, the most fervent advocates of the necessity of Spanish 
rule in Cuba. But Spanish bureaucracy is moreover so deep-rooted in Spain that 
it has succeeded in shielding itself even against the action of the courts of justice. 
There is a royal decree (that of 1882) in foice in Cuba, which provides that the 
ordinary courts can not take cognizance of such offenses as defalcation, abstraction 
or malversation of public funds, forgery, etc., committed by officials of the adminis- 
tration, if their guilt is not first established by an administrative investigation. 
The administration is, therefore, its own judge. What further security does the 
corrupt officeholder need? 

m. 

We have shown that notwithstanding the promises of Spain and the ostensible 
changes introduced in the government of Cuba since 1878, the Spaniards from Europe 
have governed and ruled exclusively in Cuba, and have continued exploiting it until 
they have ruined the country. Can this tyrannical system be justified by any kind 
of benefits that might compensate for the deprivation of actual power of which the 
natives of the colony complain? More than one despotic government has tried to 
justify itself with the material prosperity it has fostered, or with the safety it has 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 25 

secured to its citizens, or with the liberty it has given to certain manifestations of 
civilized life. Let us see whether the Cubans are indebted to the iron government 
of Spain for any of these compeusating blessings. 

Personal safety is a myth among us. Outlaws, as well as men of law, have dis- 
posed at will of the property, the peace, and the life of the inhabitants of Cuba. 
The civil guard (armed police), far from being the guardians, have been the terror 
of the Cuban peasants. Wherever they pass they cause an alarm by the brutal ill 
treatment to which they submit the inhabitants, who in many cases fly from their 
homes at their approach. Under the most trifling pretext they beat unmercifully the 
defenseless countrymen, and very frequently they have killed those they were con- 
veying under arrest. These outrages became so notorious that the commander in chief 
of the civil guard, Brigadier-General Denis, had to issue a circular in which he declared 
that his subordinates, " under pretext of obtaining confidential information, resorted 
to violent measures," and that " the cases are very frequent in which individuals 
arrested by forces of the corps attempt to escape, and the keepers find themselves 
in the necessity of making use of their weapons." What the above declarations 
signify is evident, notwithstanding the euphemisms of the official language. The 
object of this circular was to put a stop to these excesses; it bears the date of 1883. 
But the state of things continued the same. In 1886 the watering place of Madruga, 
one of the most frequented summer resorts in the island, witnessed the outrageous 
attacks of Lieutenant Sainz. In 1887 occurred the stirring trial of the "componte," 
occasioned by the application of torture to the brothers Aruca, and within a few days 
were recorded in the neighborhood of Havana the cases of Senor Riveron, who was 
stabbed in Govea by individuals of the public force; of Don Manuel Martinez M#ran 
and Don Francisco Galanena, who were beaten, the former in Calabazar, and the 
latter in Yaguajay; of Don Jose" Felipe Canosa, who narrowly escaped being mur- 
dered in San Nicolas, and of a resident of Ceiba Mocha, whom the civil guard drove 
from his home. 

This was far from the worst. In the very center of Havana, in the Camp de Marte, 
a prisoner was killed by his guards, and the shooting at Amarillas and the murders 
at Puentes Grandes and Alquizar are deeds of woful fame in the country. The 
administration of General Prendergast has left a sorrowful recollection for the fre- 
quency with which prisoners who attempted to escape were shot down. 

While the armed police force were beating and murdering peaceful inhabitants, 
the highwaymen were allowed to escape uuscathed to devastate the country at their 
pleasure. Although three millions are assigned in the budget to the service of pub- 
lic safety, there are districts, such as the Province of Puerto Principe, where its 
inhabitants have had to arm themselves and undertake the pursuit of the bandits. 
The case has occurred of an army of 5,000 or 6,000 troops being sent to pursue a 
handful of highwaymen within a small territory without succeeding in capturing 
them. Meanwhile a special bureau was established in Havana for the prosecution 
of highwaymen, and fabulons sums were spent by it. The best the Government 
succeeded in doing was to bargain with a bandit, and deceive and kill him after- 
wards on board the steamer Baldomero Iglesias in the bay of Havana. 

Nevertheless, the existence of highwaymen has served as a pretext to curtail the 
jurisdiction of the ordinary courts and submit the Cubans to the jurisdiction of the 
courts-martial, contrary to the coastitution of the state, which had already been 
proclaimed. In fact, the code of military laws (codigo de justicia militar) provides 
that the ofienses against persons and the means of transportation, as well as arson, 
when committed in the provinces of ultramar (the colonies) and the possessions of 
Africa and Oceanica, be tried by court-martial. 

It is true, however, than an explicit legal text was not necessary for the Govern- 
ment to nullify the precepts of the constitution. This was promulgated in Cuba, 
with a preamble providing that the Governor-General and his delegates should 
retain the same powers they had before its promulgation. The banishment of 
Cubans have continued after as before said promulgation. In December of 1891 
there was a strike of wharf laborers in the Province of Santa Clara. To end it the 
governor captured the strikers and banished them en masse to the Island of Pinos. 

The deportations for political offenses have not been discontinued in Cuba, and 
although it is stated that no executions for political offenses have taken place since 
1878, it is because the. Government has resorted to the more simple expedient of 
assassination. General Polavieja has declared with utmost coolness that in Decem- 
ber of 1880 he had 265 persons seized in Cuba, Palma, San Luis, Songo, ftuantanamo, 
and Sagua de Tahamo, and transported the same day and at the same hour to the 
African Island of Fernando Po. At the close of the insurrection of 1879-80 it was 
a frequent occurrence for the Government to send to the penal colonies of Africa 
the Cubans who had capitulated. The treachery of which Gen. Jose" Maceo was a 
victim carries us to the darkest times of the war of Flanders and the conquest of 
America. 

Cuba recalls with horror the dreadful assassination of Brig, Gen. Arcadio Leyte 
Vidal, perpetrated in the Bay of Nipe in September of 1879. War had just broken 



26 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

out anew in the eastern department. Brig. Gen. Leyte Vidal resided in Mayari, 
assured by the solemn promise of the Spanish commander in chief of that zone that 
he would not be molested. One month had not elapsed since the uprising, however, 
when having gone to Nipe, he was invited by the commander of the gunboat Alarma 
to take dinner on board. Leyte Vidal went on board the gunboat, but never returned. 
He was strangled in a boat by three sailors, and his corpse was cast into the sea. 
This villainous deed was committed in compliance with an order from the Spanish 
genera], Polavieja. Francisco Leyte Vidal, a cousin to Arcadio, miraculously escaped 
the same tragic fate. 

The mysterious deaths of Cubans who had capitulated long before have been fre- 
quent in Cuba. To one of these deaths was due the uprising of Tunas de Bayamo 
in 1879. 

If the personal safety of the Cubans, in a period which the Spaniards would depict 
with brilliant colors, continues at the mercy of their rulers, who are aliens in the 
country both by birth and in ideas, have the Cubans' honor and property any better 
safeguard f Is the administration of justice good, or even endurable? The very idea 
of a lawsuit frightens every honest Cuban. Nobody trusts the honesty or independ- 
ence of the judges. Despite the provisions of the constitution, without warrant and 
for indefinite time, imprisonments are most common in Cuba. The magistrates can 
tighten or loosen the elastic meshes of the judicial proceedings. They know ■well 
that if they curry favor with the Government they can do anything without incur- 
ring responsibility. They consider themselves, and without thinking it a disgrace, 
as mere political tools. The presidents and attorneys-general of the " audiencias " 
receive their instructions at the captain-general's office. Twice have the governors 
of Cuba aimed at establishing a special tribunal to deal with the offenses of the press, 
thereby undermining the constitution. Twice has this special tribunal been estab- 
lished. More than once has a straightforward and impartial judge been found to try 
a case in which the interests of influential people were involved. On such occasions 
the straightforward judge has been replaced by a special judge. 

In a country where money is wastefully spent to support a civil and military 
bureaucracy the appropriation for the administration of justice does not reach $500,000. 
On the other hand, the sales of stamped paper constitute a revenue of $750,000. Thus 
the State derives a pecuniary profit from its administration of justice. 

Is it, then, a wondrr that the reforms that have been attempted by establishing 
lower and higher courts to take cognizance of criminal cases, and by introducing 
oral and public trials should not have contributed in the least to improve the admin- 
istration of justice f Onerous services have been exacted from people without proper 
compensation as gratuitous services. The Government, so splendidly liberal when 
its own expenses are in question, haggles for the last cent when dealing with truly 
useful and reproductive services. 

Is the Cuban compensated for his absolute deprivation of political power, the fiscal 
extortions, and the monstrous deficiencies of judicial administration by the material 
prosperity of his country ? No man acquainted with the intimate relations which 
exist between the fiscal regime of a country and its economical system will believe 
that Cuba, crushed as it is, by unreasonable budgets and an enormous debt, can be 
rich. The income of Cuba in the most prosperous times has been calculated at $80,- 
000,000. The state, provincial, and municipal charges take much more than 40 per 
cent of this amount. This fact explains itself. We need not draw any inferences 
therefrom. Let us confine ourselves to casting a glance over the aspect presented by 
the agricultural, industrial, and real estate interests in Cuba at the beginning of the 
present year. 

Despite the prodigious efforts made by private individuals to extend the cultiva- 
tion of the sugar cane and to raise the sugar-making industry to the plane it has 
reached, both the colonists and the proprietors of the sugar plantations and the sugar 
mills (centrales) are on the brink of bankruptcy and ruin. In selling the output 
they knew that they would not get sufficient means to cover the cost of keeping and 
repairing their colonies and sugar mills. There is not a single agricultural bank in 
Cuba. The "hacendado" (planter, landowner) had to recur to usurious loans and 
to pay 18 and 20 per cent for the sums which they borrowed. Not long ago there 
existed in Havana the Spanish Bank, the Bank of Commerce, the Industrial Bank, 
the Bank of St. Joseph, the Bank of the Alliance, the Bank of Maritime Insurances, 
and the Savings Bank. Of these there remain to-day only the Spanish Bank, which 
has been converted into a vast State office, and the Bank of Commerce, which owes 
its existence to the railways and warehouses it possesses. None of these give any 
aid to the sugar industry. 

The cigar-making industry, which was in such flourishing condition a short time 
ago, has fallen so low that fears are entertained that it may emigrate entirely from 
Cuba. The weekly El Tabaco came to the conclusion that the exportation of 
cigars from Cuba would cease entirely within six years. From 1889 to 1894 the expor- 
tation from the port of Havana had decreased "*y 116,200,000 cigars. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 27 

City real estate has fallen to one-half and in some cases to one-third the value it 
had Before 1884. A huilding in Havana which was erected at a cost of $600,000 was 
sold in 1893 for $120,000. 

Stocks and bonds tell the same story. Almost all of them are quoted in Havana 
with heavy discounts. 

The cause of the ruin of Cuba, despite her sugar output of 1,000,000 tons and 
her vast tobacco fields, can be easily explained. Cuba does not capitalize, and it does 
not capitalize because the fiscal regime imposed upon the country does not permit 
it. The money derived from its large exportations does not return either in the form 
of importations of goods or of cash. It remains abroad to pay the interest of its 
huge debt, to cover the incessant remittances of funds by the Spaniards who hasten 
to send their earnings out of the country, to pay from our treasury the pensioners 
who live in Spain, and to meet the drafts forwarded by every mail from Cuba by the 
Spaniards as a tribute to their political patrons in the metropolis, and to help their 
families. 

Cuba pays $2,192,795 in pensions to those on the retired list and to superannuated 
officials not in service. Most of this money is exported. The first chapters of the 
Cuban budget imply the exportation of over $10,600,000. Cuba pays a subsidy of 
$471,836.68 to the Transatlantic Company. It would be impossible to calculate the 
amount of money taken out of Cuba by private individuals ; but this constant expor- 
tation of capital signifies that nobody is contented in Cuba and that everybody 
mistrusts its future. The consequence is that notwithstanding the apparently 
favorable commercial balance exchange is constantly and to a high degree against 
Cuba. 

On the other hand, if Cuba labors and strives to be on the same plane as its most 
progressive competitors, this is the work of her own people, who do not mind any 
sacrifices ; but the Government cares little or nothing about securing to the country 
such means of furthering its development as are consigned in the budget under the 
head of "Foniento." 

And now, at the outbreak of the present war, Spain finds that, although the 
appropriations consigned in our budgets since 1878 amount to nearly $500,000,000, 
not a single military road has been built, no fortifications, no hospitals, and 
there is no material of war. The State has not provided, even for its own 
defense. In view of this fact, nobody will be surprised to hear that a country 670 
kilometers long, with an area of 118,833 square kilometers, has only 24fr£ lineal kilo- 
meters of high roads, and these almost exclusively in the province of Havana. In 
that of Santiago de Cuba there are 9 kilometers; in Puerto Principe and Las Villas 
not a single one. Cuba has 3,506 kilometers of seashore and 54 ports ; only 15 of these 
are open to commerce. In the labyrinth of keys, sand banks, and breakers adjacent 
to our coasts there are only 19 light-houses of all classes. Many of our ports, some 
of the best among them, are rilling up. The coasting steamers can hardly pass the 
bars at the entrance of the ports of Nuevitas, Gibara, Baracoa, and Santiago de Cuba. 
Private parties have sometimes been willing to remedy these evils ; but then the cen- 
tral administration has interfered, and after years of red tape things have remained 
worse than before. In the course of twenty-eight years only 139 kilometers of high- 
roads were built in Cuba; 2 first-class light-houses were erected, 3 of the second 
class, and 1 of the fourth class, 3 beacon lights and 2 port lights ; 246 meters of wharf 
were built, and a few ports were superficially cleaned and their shoals marked. This 
was all. On the other hand, the department of public works consumes unlimited 
millions in salaries and in repairs. 

The neglect of public hygiene in Cuba is proverbial. The technical commission 
sent by the United States to Havana to study the yellow fever declared that the port of 
the capital of Cuba, owing to the inconceivable filth, is a permanent source of infec- 
tion, against which it is necessary to take precautions. There is in Havana, how- 
ever a "junta de puerto" (board of port wardens) which collects dues and spends 
them with the same munificence as the other bureaucratic centers. 

Does the Government favor us more in the matter of education? It will suffice to 
state that only $182,000 are assigned to public instruction in our splendid budget. 
And it may be proved that the University of Havana is a source of pecuniary profit 
to the State. On the other hand, this institution is without laboratories, instru- 
ments, and even without water to carry on experiments. All the countries of America, 
excepting Bolivia, all of them, including Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Guadalupe, 
where the colored race predominates, spend a great deal more than the Cuban 
Government for the education of the people. On the other hand, only Chile 
spends as much as Cuba for the support of an army. In view of this it is easily 
explained why 76 per cent of such an intelligent and. wide-awake people as that of 
Cuba can not read and write. The most necessary instruction among us, the tech- 
nical and industrial, does not exist. The careers and professions most needed by 
modern civilization are not cultivated in Cuba. In order to become a topographer, 
a scientific agriculturist, an electrician, an industrial or mechanical engineer, a 
railroad or mining engineer, the Cuban has to go to a foreign country. The State 
in Caba does not support a single public library. 



28 AFFAIRS IN CUBA, 

Are the deficiencies of the Spanish regime compensated hy the wisdom of its 
administration? Every time the Spanish Government has undertaken the solution 
of any of the great problems pending in Cuba it has only confused and made it 
worse. It has solved it blindly or yielded to the influence of tbose who were to 
profit by the change. It will be sufficient to recall the withdrawal from circulation 
of the bank notes, which proved to be a highly lucrative transaction for a few per- 
sons, but which only embarrassed and impaired the monetary circulation of the 
island. From one day to another the cost of living became 40 per cent dearer. The 
depreciated Spanish silver entered in circulation to drive out, as was natural, the 
"centen" (five-dollar gold coin) and make small transactions difficult. To reach 
these results the Spanish Government had transformed a debt on which it 
had no interest to pay into a debt bearing a high rate of interest. It is true that, 
in exchange, all the retail dealers whose votes it was desirable to keep derived very 
large profits from the operation. These dealers are, of course, Spaniards. 

IV. 

In exchange for all that Spain withholds from us they say that it has given us 
liberties. This is a mockery. The liberties are written in the constitution but 
obliterated in its practical application. Before and after its promulgation the public 
press has been rigorously persecuted in Cuba. Many journalists, such as SeBores 
Cepeda and L6pes Brinas, have been banished from the country without the formal- 
ity of a trial. In November of 1891 the writer Don Manuel A. Balmaseda was tried 
by court-martial for having published an editorial paragraph in El Criterio Popular, 
of Kemedios, relative to the shooting of the medical students. The newspapers have 
been allowed to discuss public affairs theoretically ; but the moment they denounce 
any abuse or the conduct of any official they feel the hand of their rulers laid upon 
them. The official organ of the home-rule party, El Pais, named before El Triunfo, 
has undergone more than one trial for having pointed in measured terms to some 
infractions of the law on the part of officials, naming the transgressors. In 1887 
that periodical was subjected to criminal proceedings simply because it had stated 
that a son of the president of the Havana "audiencia" was holding a certain office 
contrary to law. 

They say that in Cuba the people are at liberty to hold pubMc meetings, but every 
time the inhabitants assemble, previous notification must be given to the authorities, 
and a functionary is appointed to be present, with power to suspend the meetiug when- 
ever he deems such a measure advisable. The meetings of the "Circulo de Traba- 
jadores" (an association of workingmen) were forbidden by the authorities under 
the pretex that the building where they were to be held was not sufficiently safe. 
Last year the members of the " Cfrculo de Hacendados" (association of planters) 
invited their fellow-members throughout the country to get up a great demonstra- 
tion to demand a remedy which the critical state of their affairs required. The 
Government found means to prevent their meeting. One of the most significant 
events that have occurred in Cuba, and one which throws a flood of light upon its 
political regime, was the failure of the "Junta Magua" (an extraordinary meeting) 
projected by the "Circulo de Hacendados." This corporation solicited the coopera- 
tion of the "Sociedad Econ6mica" and of the "Junta General de Cornercio" to 
hold a meeting for the purpose of sending to the metropolis the complaints which 
the precarious situation of the country inspired. The work of preparation was 
already far advanced when a friend of the Government, Senor Eodriguez Correa, 
stated that the Governor-General looked with displeasure upon and forbade ^ie 
holding of the great meeting. This was sufficient to frighten the "Circulo" and to 
secure the failure of the project. It is then evident that the inhabitants of Cuba 
can have meetings only when the Government thinks it advisable to permit them. 

Against this political regime, which is a sarcasm and in which deception is added 
to the most absolute contempt for right, the Cubans have unceasingly protested 
since it was implanted in 1878. It would be difficult to enumerate the representa- 
tions made in Spain, the protests voiced by the representatives of Cuba, the commis- 
sions that have crossed the ocean to try to impress upon the exploiters of Cuba 
what the fatal consequences of their obstinacy would be. The exasperation prevail- 
ing in the country was such that the "junta central" of the home-rule party issued in 
1892 a manifesto in which it foreshadowed that the moment might shortly arrive 
when the countrv would resort to "extreme measures, the responsibility of which 
would fall on those who, led by arrogance and priding themselves on their power, 
hold prudence in contempt, worship force, and shield themselves with their 
impunity." 

This manifesto, which foreboded the mournful hours of the present war, was 
unheeded by Spain, and not until a division took place in the Spanish party, 
which threatened to turn into an armed struggle, did the statesmen of Spain think 
that the moment had arrived to try a new farce, and to make a false show of reform 
in the administrative regime of Cuba. Then was Minister Maura's plan broached, 
to be modified before its birth by Minister Abarzuas. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 29 

This project, to which the Spaniards have endeavored to give capital importance 
In order to condemn the revolution as the work of impatience and anarchism, leaves 
intact the political regime of Cuba. It does not alter the electoral law. It does not 
curtail the power of the bureaucracy. It increases the power of the general Govern- 
ment. It leaves the same burdens upon the Cuban taxpayer, and does not give him 
the right to participate in the information of the budgets. The reform is confined 
to the changing of the council of administration (now in existence in the island, 
and the members of which are appointed by the Government) into a partially elective 
body. One-half of its members are to be appointed by the Government and the 
other half to be elected by the qualified electors — that is, who assessed and pay for 
a certain amount of taxes. The Governor-General has the right to veto all its reso- 
lutions and to suspend at will the elective members. This council is to make up a 
kind of special budget embracing the items included now in the general budget of 
Cuba under the head of "Fomento." The State reserves for itself all the rest. 
Thus the council can dispose of 2.75 per cent of the revenues of Cuba, while the 
Government distributes, as at present, 97.25 per cent for its expenses, in the form 
we have explained. The general budget will, as heretofore, be made up in Spain; 
the tariff lawswill be enacted by Spain. The debt, militarism, and bureaucracy will 
continue to devour Cuba, and the Cubans will continue to be treated as a subjugated 
people. All power is to continue in the hands of the Spanish Government and its 
delegates in Cuba, and all the influence with the Spanish residents. This is the self- 
government which Spain has promised to Cuba, and which it is announcing to the 
world, in exchange for its colonial system. A far better form of government is 
enjoyed by the Bahama or the Turks islands. 

The Cubans would have been wanting not only in self-respect but even in the 
instincts of self-preservation if they could have endured such a degrading and 
destructive regime. Their grievances are of such a nature that no people, no human 
community capable of valuing its honor and of aspiring to better its condition, 
could bear them without degrading and condemning itself to utter nullity and 
annihilation. 

Spain denies to the Cubans all effective powers in their own coimtry. 

Spain condemns the Cubans to a political inferiority in the land where they are 
horn. 

Spain confiscates the product of the Cuban's labor without giving them in return 
either safety, prosperity, or education. 

Spain has shown itseif utterly incapable of governing Cuba. 

Spain exploits, impoverishes, and demoralizes Cuba. 

To maintain by force of arms this monstrous regime, which brings ruin on a coun- 
try rich by nature and degrades a vigorous and intelligent population, a population 
filled with noble aspirations, is what Spain calls to defend its honor and preserve 
the prestige of its social functions as a civilizing power of America. 

The Cubans, not in anger but in despair, have appealed to arms in order to defend 
their rights and to vindicate an eternal principle, a principle without which every 
community, however robust in appearance, is in danger — the principle of justice. 
Nobody has the right of oppression. Spain oppresses us. In rebelling against 
oppression we defend a right. In serving our own cause we serve the cause of 
mankind. 

We have not counted the number of our enemies; we have not measured their 
strength. We have cast up the account of our grievances ; we have weighed the 
mass of injustice that crushes us, and with uplifted hearts we have risen to seek 
redress and to uphold our rights. We may find ruin and death a few steps ahead. 
So be it. We do our duty. If the world is indifferent to our cause, so much the 
worse for all. A new iniquity shall have been consummated. The principle of 
human solidarity shall have suffered a defeat. The sum of good existing in the 
world, and which the world needs to purify its moral atmosphere, shall have been 
lessened. 

The people of Cuba require only liberty and independence to become a factor of 
prosperity and progress in the community of civilized nations. At present Cuba is 
a factor of intranquillity, disturbance, and ruin. The fault lies entirely with Spain. 
Cuba is not the offender ; it is the defender of its rights. Let America, let the world 
decide where rest justice and right. 

Enbique Jose Varona, 

Ex-Diputado a Cortes. 

New York, October S3, 1895. 



30 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

B. 

Compilation op the Laws, Rules, Decrees, Circulars, and other Orders 
Passed by the National Council from the 19th of September, 1895, the 
Date on which it Commenced to Exercise Its Functions. 

Mangos de Baragua. 

The National Council, in a meeting held on the 16th of October, 1895, resolved 
that the publication in book form in an edition of 500 copies of all the laws, rules, 
decrees, and other orders passed by it be printed after being previously approved by 
the Council and sanctioned by its president. 

Jose Clemente Vivanco, 
The Secretary of the Council. 



CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, REPUBLIC OF CUBA. 

I, Jose" Clemente Vivanco, secretary of the Natioual Council and chancellor of 
the Republic of Cuba, certify that the representatives of the different army corps, 
into which the army of liberation is divided, met in constituent assembly on the 13th 
day of September, 1895, at Jimaguayu, agreed to have a preliminary session where 
the character of each representative would be accredited by the respective creden- 
tial of his appointment. There resulted, after the proper examination by the chair- 
man and secretaries, who were temporarily Citizens Salvador Cisneros Betancourt 
and Secretaries Jos6 Clemente Vivanco and Orencio Nodarse, the following distri- 
bution: 

Eepresentatives of the First Army Corps, Citizens Dr. Joaquin Castillo Duany, 
Mariano Sanchez Vaillant, Rafael M. Portuondo, and Pedro Aguillera. 

For the Second, Citizens Licentiate Rafael Manduley, Enrique Cespedes, Rafael 
Perez Morales, and Marcos Padilla. 

For the Third, Citizens Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, Lopez Recio Loinaz, Enrique 
Loinaz del Castillo, and Dr. Fermmin Valdes Dominguez. 

For the Fourth, Licentiate Severo Pina, Dr. Santiago Garcia Canizares, Eaimundo 
Sanchez Valdivia, and Francisco Lopez Leiba. 

For the Fifth, Dr. Pedro Pinan de Villegas, Licentiate Jose" Clemente Vivanco, 
Francisco Diaz Silveria, and Orencio Nodarse. 

They proceeded to the election of officers for the following session and the follow- 
ing appointments were made : Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, president ; Rafael Man- 
duley, vice-president; secretaries, Licentiate Jose Clemente Vivanco, Francisco Lopez 
Leiba, Licentiate Rafael M. Portuondo, and Orencio Nodarse. 

The assembly having been organized as above, and in the presence of the above 
representatives, they proceeded to hold the sessions to discuss the constitution 
which is to rule the destinies of the Republic. These sessions took place on Sep- 
tember 13, 14, 15, and 16, instant, and in all the articles which were to form the said 
constitutional charta were discussed. Every article of the projected constitution 
presented to the assembly by the representatives licentiate, Rafael M. Portuondo, 
Dr. Joaquin Castillo Duany, Mariano Sanchez Vaillant, and Pedro Aguilera, was 
well discussed, and, together with amendments, reforms, and additions were also 
discussed by the proposers. On deliberation, in conformity with the opinion of the 
assembly, it was unanimously resolved to refer the said constitution, with the reso- 
lutions of the said assembly, to a committee of revision of the text, composed of the 
secretaries and of the representatives, Dr. Santiago Garcia, Canizares and Enrique, 
Loynaz del Castillo, who, after complying with their mission, returned the final 
draft of the constitution on the 16th. It was then read, and the signature of each 
and every representative subscribed. 

The president and other members of the assembly, with due solemnity, then swore 
upon their honor to loyally and strictly observe the fundamental code of the Repub- 
lic of Cuba, which was greeted by the spontaneous and enthusiastic acclamations of 
all present ; in testimony of which are the minutes in the general archive of the 
Government. 

In compliance with the resolution passed by this council in a meeting held to-day, 
and for its publication, I issue the following copy, in the Mangos de Baragua on the 
18th of October, 1895. 

Jose Clemexte Vivanco, 

Secretary of the Council. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 31 

CONSTITUTION OF THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OP CUBA. 

The revolution for the independence and creation in Cuba of a democratic Repuhlic 
in its new period of war, initiated on February 24 last, solemnly declares the separa- 
tion of Cuba from the Spanish monarchy, and. its constitution as a free and inde- 
pendent State, with its own Government and supreme authority under the name of 
the Republic of Cuba and confirms its existence among the political divisions of the 
world. 

The elected representatives of the revolution, in convention assembled, acting in 
its name and by the delegation which for that purpose has been conferred upon them 
by the Cubans in arms, and previously declaring before the country the purity of 
their thoughts, their freedom from violence, anger, or prejudice, and inspired only 
by the desire of interpreting the popular voice in favor of Cuba, have now formed a 
compact between Cuba and the world, pledging their honor for the fulfillment of 
said compact in the following articles of the constitution: 

Article I. The supreme powers of the Eepublic shall be vested in a government 
council composed of a president, vice-president, and four secretaries of state, for the 
dispatch of the business of war, of the interior, of foreign affairs, and of the treasury. 

Art. II. Every secretary shall have a subsecretary of state, in order to supply any 
vacancies. 

Art. III. The government council shall have the following powers: 

1. To dictate all measures relative to the civil and political life of the revolution. 

2. To impose and collect taxes, to contract public loans, to issue paper money, to 
invest the funds collected in the island, from whatever source, and also those which 
may be raised abroad by loan. 

3. To arm vessels, to raise and maintain troops, to declare reprisals with respect 
to the enemy, and to ratify treaties. 

4. To grant authority, when it is deemed convenient, to order the trial by the judi- 
cial power of the president or other members of the council, if he be accused 

5. To decide all matters, of whatsoever description, which may be brought before 
them by any citizen, except those judicial in character. 

6. To approve the law of military organization and the ordinances of the army, 
which may be proposed by the general in chief. 

7. To grant military commissions from that of colonel upward, previously hearing 
and considering the reports of the immediate superior officer and of the general in 
chief, and to designa fce the appointment of the latter and of the lieutenant-general 
in case of the vacancy of either. 

8. To order the election of four representatives for each army corps whenever in 
conformity with this constitution it may be necessary to convene an assembly. 

Art. IV. The Government council shall intervene in the direction of military 
operations only when in their judgment it shall be absolutely necessary to do so to 
realize high political ends. 

Art. V. As a requisite for the validity of the decrees of the council, at least two- 
thirds of the members of the same must have taken part in the deliberations of the 
council, and the decrees must have been voted by the majority of those present. 

Art. VI. The office of councilor is incompatible with any other of the Republic, 
and requires the age of twenty- five years. 

Art. VII. The executive power is vested in the president, and, in case of disability, 
in the vice-president. 

Art. VIII. The resolutions of the government council shall be sanctioned and 
promulgated by the president, who shall take all necessary steps for their execution 
within ten days. 

Art. IX. The president may enter into treaties with the ratification of the gov- 
ernment council. 

Art. X. The president shall receive all diplomatic representatives and issue the 
respective commissions to the public functionaries. 

Art. XI. The treaty of peace with Spain, which must necessarily have for its basis 
the absolute independence of the Island of Cuba, must be ratified by the govern- 
ment council and by an assembly of representatives convened expressly for this 
purpose. 

Art. XII. The vice-president shall substitute the president in the case'of a vacancy. 

Art. XIII. In case of the vacancy in the offices of both president and vice-presi- 
dent on account of resignation, deposition, or death of both, or from any other 
cause, an assembly of representatives for the election to the vacant offices shall be 
convened, the senior secretaries in the meanwhile occupying the positions. 

Art. XIV. The secretaries shall have voice and vote in the deliberations of resolu- 
tions of whatever nature. 

Art. XV. The secretaries shall have the right to appoint all the employees of their 
respective offices. 

Art. XVI. The subsecretaries in cases of vacancy shall substitute the secretaries 
of state and shall then have voice and vote in the deliberations. 



32 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Akt. XVll. All the armed forces of the Republic and the direction of the military- 
operations shall be under the control of the general in chief, who shall have under 
his orders as second in command a lieutenant-general, who will substitute him in 
case of vacancy. 

Art. XVIII. All public functionaries of whatever class shall aid one another in 
the execution of the resolutions of the government council. 

Art. XIX. All Cubans are bound to serve the revolution with their persons and 
interests, each one according to his ability. 

Art. XX. The plantations and property of whatever description belonging to 
foreigners are subject to the payment of taxes for the revolution while their respec- 
tive governments do not recognize the rights of belligerency of Cuba. 

Art. XXI. All debts and obligations contracted since the beginning of the present 
period of war until the promulgation of this constitution by the chiefs of the army 
corps, for the benefit of the revolution, shall be valid as well as those which hence- 
forth the government council may contract. 

Art. XXII. A government council may depose any of its members for cause justi- 
fiable in the judgment of two-thirds of the councilors and shall report to the first 
assembly convening. 

Art. XXIII. The judicial power shall act with entire independence of all the 
others. Its organization and. regulation will be provided for by the government 
council. 

Art. XXIV. The present constitution shall be in force in Cuba for two years from 
the date of its promulgation, unless the war for independence shall terminate before. 
After the expiration of the two years an assembly of representatives shall be con- 
vened which may modify it, and will proceed to the election of a new government 
council, and which will pass upon the last council. So it has been agreed upon and 
resolved in the name of the Republic by the constituent assembly in Jimaguayu on 
the 18th day of September, 1895, and in witness thereof we, the representatives dele- 
gated by the Cuban people in arms, signed the present instrument. Salvador Cis- 
neros, president; Rafael Manduley, vice-president; Pedro Pinan de Villegas, Lope 
Recio, Fermin Valdes Dominguez, Francisco Diaz Silveira, Dr. Santiago Garcia, 
Rafael Perez, F. Lopez Leyva, Enrique Cespedes, Marcos Padilla, Raimundo Sanchez, 
J. D. Castillo, Mariano Sanchez, Pedro Aguilera, Rafael M. Pontuondo, Orencio 
Nodarse, Jose" Clemente Vivanco, Enrique Loynaz Del Castillo, Severo Pina. 

ELECTION OF GOVERNMENT. 

The constituent assembly met again on the 18th of the said month and year, all the 
said representatives being present. They proceeded to the election of members who 
are to occupy the offices of the Government council, the general-in-chief of the army 
of liberation, the lieutenant-general, and the diplomatic agent abroad. The secret 
voting commenced, each representative depositing his ballot in the urn placed on the 
chairman's table, after which the count was proceeded with, the following being the 
result: 

President : Salvador Cisneros, 12 ; Bartolome Maso, 8. 

Vice-president : Bartolome Maso, 12 ; Salvador Cisneros, 8. 

Secretary of war: Carlos Roloff, 18; Lope Recio Loinaz, 1; Rafael Manduley, 1. 

Secretary of the treasury: Severo Pina, 19; Rafael Manduley, 1. 

Secretary of the interior: Dr. Santiago Garcia Canizares, 19; Carlos Dubois, 1. 

Secretary of the foreign relations : Rafael Portuondo, 18 ; Armando Menocal, 1 
blank, 1. 

Subsecretary of war: Mario Menocal, 18; Francisco Diaz Silveira, 1; blank, 1. 

Subsecretary of the treasury: Dr. Joaquin Castillo, 7; Francisco Diaz Silveira, 5; 
Jose" C. Vivanco, 3; Armando Menocal, 3; Carlos Dubois, 1; blank, 1. 

Subsecretary of the interior: Carlos Dubois, 13; Oreneio Nodarse, 5; Armando 
Menocal, 1; blank, 1. 

Subsecretary of foreign relations: Fermin Valdes Dominguez, 18; Rafael Man- 
duley, 1: blank, 1. 

Therefore, the following were elected by a majority of votes: 

President, Salvador Cisneros; vice-president, Bartolome Maso; secretary of war, 
Carlos Roloff; secretary of the treasury, Severo Pina; secretary of the interior, Dr. 
Santiago Garcia Canizares; secretary of foreign relations, Rafael M. Portuondo; 
subsecretary of war, Mario Menocal; subsecretary of the treasury, Dr. Joaquin 
Castillo; subsecretary of the interior, Carlos Dubois; subsecretary of foreign rela- 
tions, Dr. Fermin Valdes Dominguez. 

The vice-president of the assembly immediately installed the president in the office 
of the government council that had been conferred upon him ; the latter in turn 
Installed those of the other members elected, who were present, all entering on the 
foil exercise of their functions after previously taking the oath. 

Om proceeding to the election of those who were to occupy the positions of gen- 
eral in chief of the army, lieutenant-generaL and diplomatic agent abroad, the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 33 

following citizens were unanimously elected by the assembly for the respective 
places: Major-General Maximo Gomez, Major-General Antonio Maceo. and Citizen 
Tomas Estrada Palma. All these appointments being recognized from ttat moment. 

LAWS FOR THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OP THE REPUBLIC. 

Chapter I. — Territorial Division. 

Article I. The Republic of Cuba comprises the territory occupied by the Island 
of Cuba from Cape San Antonio to Point Maisi and the adjacent islands and keys. 

Art. II. This territory shall be divided into four portions, or states, which will be 
called Oriente, Camaguey, Las Villas or Cabanacan, and Occidente. 

Art. III. The State of Oriente includes the territory from the Point Maisi to Port 
Manati and the river Jobabo in all its course. 

Art. IV. The State of Camaguey includes all the territory from the boundary of 
Oriente to the line which starts in the north from Laguna Blanca through the 
Esteros to Moron, passing by Ciego de Avila, follows the military trocha to El Jucaro 
in the southern coast, it being understood that the towns of Moron and Ciego de 
Avila belong to this State. 

Art. V. The State of Las Villas has for boundary on the east Camaguey, on the 
west the river Palmas, Palmillas, Santa Rosa, Rodas, the Hannabana River, and the 
bay of Cochinos. 

Art. VI. The State of Occidente is bordered on the Las Villas, extending to the 
west to Cape San Antonio. 

Art. VII. The islands and adjacent keys will form part of the states to which 
they geographically belong. 

Art. VIII. The State of Oriente will be divided into ten districts, which shall be 
as follows: Baracoa, Guantanamo, Sagua de Tanamo, Mayari, Santiago, Jiguani, 
Manzanillo, Bayamo, and Tunas. 

Camaguey comprises two — the eastern district and the western district. 

Las Villas comprises seven — Sancti-Espiritus, Trinidad, Remedios, Santa Clara, 
Sagua, Cienfuegos, and Colon. 

That of Occidente comprises sixteen — Cardenas, Matanzas, Union, Jaruco, Guinea, 
Santa Maria del Rosario, Guanabacoa, Habana, Santiago de las Vegas, Bejucal, San 
Antonio, Bahia Honda, Pina del Rio, and Mantua. 

Art. IX. Each of these districts will be divided into prefectures, and these in their 
turn into as many subprefectures as may be considered necessary. 

Art. X. For the vigilance of the coasts there will be inspectors and watchmen 
appointed in each State according to the extent of the coasts and the number of 
ports, bays, gulfs, and salt works that there may be. 

Art. XI. On establishing the limits of the districts and prefectures, the direction 
of the coast, rivers, and other natural boundaries shall be kept in mind. 

Chapter II. — Of the Government and its Administration. 

Art. XII. The civil government, the administration, and the service of commu- 
nications devolve upon the department of the interior. 

Art. XIII. The secretary of the interior is the head of the department ; he will 
appoint the employees and will remove them whenever there will be justifiable 
cause, and will have a department chief to aid him in the work of the department. 

Art. XIV. The department chief will keep the books of the department, take 
care of the archives, will be the manager of the office, and will furnish certifications 
when requested to do so. 

Art. XV. The department of the interior will compile from the data collected 
by the civil governors the general statistics of the Republic. 

Art. XVI. The civil governor will inform the department of the interior as to 
the necessities of his state, will order the measures and instructions necessary for 
compliance with the general laws of the Republic and the orders given by that 
department, will distribute to the lieutenant-governors the articles of prime neces- 
sity which will be delivered to them for t4iat purpose, will communicate to his sub- 
ordinates the necessary instructions for the compilation of statistics, and will have 
a subsecretary who will help him in the discharge of his functions. 

Art. XVII. The lieutenant-governor will nee that the orders of the governors are 
obeyed in the district, and will have the powers incident to his position as inter- 
mediary between the civil governors and the prefects. In case of absolute breach 
of communication with the civil governors, they will have the same powers as the 
latter. 

Art. XVIII. The prefect shall see that the laws and regulations communicated to 
him by his superior authorities are complied with. All residents and travelers are 
under his authority, and, being the highest official in his territory, he in his turn is 
bound to prevent all abuses and crimes which may be committed. 

3 



34 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

He will inform the lieutenant-governor as to the necessities of the prefecture; 
will divide these into as many subprefectures as he may consider necessary for the 

food conduct of his administration ; he will watch the conduct of the subprefects ; 
e will distribute among them with equity the articles delivered to him, and he will 
have all the other powers incident to him in his character of intermediary between 
the lieutenant-governor and the subprefects. 

Art. XIX. The prefect will also have the following duties : He will harass the 
enemy whenever possible for him to do so ; will hear the preliminary information as 
to crimes and misdemeanors which may be committed in his territory, passing the 
said information to the nearest military chief, together with the accused and all that 
is necessary for the better understanding of the hearing. He will not proceed thus 
with spies, guides, couriers, and others who are declared by our laws as traitors and 
considered as such, for these, on account of the difficulty of confining them or con- 
ducting them with security, shall be tried as soon as captured by a court consisting 
of three persons, the most capable in his judgment in the prefecture, one acting as 
president and the others as members of the court. He will also appoint a prosecut- 
ing officer, and the accused may appoint some one to defend him at his pleasure. 

After the court is assembled in this form, and after all the formalities are complied 
with, it will in private judge and give its sentence, which will be final and without 
appeal ; but those who form the said court and who do not proceed according to our 
laws and to natural reason will be held responsible by the superior government. Nev- 
ertheless, if in the immediate territory there be any armed force, the accused shall be 
sent to it with the facts in order that they shall be properly tried. 

The prefects will take the statistics of his prefecture, setting down every person 
who is found therein, noting if he is the head of a family, the number of the same, 
his age, his nationality and occupation, if he is a farmer the nature of his farm, and 
if he has no occupation the prefect will indicate in what he should be employed. 
He will also keep a book of civil register in which he will set down the births, deaths, 
and marriages which may occur. 

He will establish in the prefecture all the factories that he can or may consider 
necessary in order to well provide the army, as it is the primary obligation of all 
employees of the Republic to do all possible so that the hides shall not be lost, and 
organizing in the best manner, and as quickly as may be, tanneries, factories of shoes, 
rope, blankets, and carpenter and blacksmith shops. 

He will not permit any individual of his district to be without occupation. He 
will see that everyone works, having the instruments of labor at hand in propor- 
tion to the inhabitants of his territory. He will protect and raise bees, he will take 
care of abandoned farms, and will extend as far as possible the zones of agriculture. 

As soon as the prefect learns that the secretary of the interior or any delegate of 
this authority is in his district he will place himself under the latter's orders. This 
he will also do on the arrival of armed forces, presenting himself to their chief in 
order to facilitate the needed supplies and to serve him in every possible manner. He 
will have a bugle to warn the inhabitants of the enemy's approach ; he will inform 
the nearest armed force when his territory is invaded. He will collect all horses 
and other animals suitable for the war and lead them to a secure place, so that when 
the army may need them or they may be required by the civil authorities to whom 
they may appertain. 

He will provide the forces that may be, or pass through his territory with what- 
ever they may need, which may be within his power, and especially shall he pro- 
vide guides and beeves and vegetables which the chief may require to maintain the 
said forces. He will also deliver the articles manufactured in the shops under his 
immediate inspection, demanding always the proper receipts therefor. 

He will also provide the necessary means for the maintenance of all the families 
of the territory, especially those of the soldiers of the army of liberation. 

Until otherwise decreed he will celebrate civil marriages and other contracts 
entered into by the residents of his prefecture; he will act in cases of ordinary com- 
plaints and in the execution of powers and wills, registering the same in a clear and 
definite manner, and issuing to the interested parties the certificates which they may 
require. 

Art. XX. The subprefects will see that the laws and orders communicated to him 
by his superior authorities are obeyed in territory under his command; he will 
inform the prefect as to the necessities of the subprefecture and will see to the 
security and order of the public ; arresting and sending to the prefects those who 
may travel without safe-conduct, seeing that no violation of law whatsoever is 

Eerpetrated, and will demand the signed authority of the civil or military chief who 
as ordered a commission to be executed. 

Art. XXI. The subprefects will compile a census in which the number of inhabit- 
ants of a subprefecture will be stated and their personal description ; he will keep a 
book ©f the births and deaths which will occur in his territory, and of all this he 
will give account at the end of the year. He will invest the means provided by the 
prefect to pay the public charges, and if the said resources are insufficient he will 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 35 

collect the deficit from the inhabitants ; he will not authorize the destruction of 
abandoned farms, whether they belong to friends or enemies of the Republic, and he 
will inform the prelect of the farms which are thus abandoned. 

Art. XXII. For the organization and better operation of the states manufactories 
a chief of factories shall be appointed in each district, who will be authorized to 
establish such factories which he may deem convenient, employing all citizens who, 
on account of their abilities can serve, and collecting in the prefectures of his dis- 
trict all the instruments he can utilize in his work. These chiefs will be careful to 
frequently inspect the factories, to report any defects which they may notice, and to 
provide the superintendents with whatever they may need, that the work may not 
be interrupted. 

Together with the prefect he will send to the department of the interior the names 
of the individuals he considers most adapted to open new shops, and on the first day 
of each month he will send to that department a statement of the objects manu- 
factured in each shop of his district, indicating the place of manufacture, what 
remains on deposit, what has been delivered, with the names of commanders of 
forces, civil authorities, or individuals to whom they were delivered. 

Art. XXIII. The coast inspectors will have under their immediate orders an 
inspector, who will be his secretary, who will occupy his place in his absence or sick- 
ness, and as many auxiliaries as he may deem convenient. He may demand the aid 
of the prefects and armed forces whenever he may consider it necessary for the bet- 
ter exercise of his functions. The duties of the inspectors will be to watch the 
coasts and prevent the landing of the enemy, to be always ready to receive disem- 
barkments and place in safety the expeditions which may come from abroad, to 
establish all the salt works possible, to capture the Spanish vessels which frequent 
the coasts on his guard, and to attend with special care to the punctual service of 
communications between his coast and foreign countries. 

Art. XXIV. The coast guards will acknowledge the inspector as their superior, 
will watch the places designated to them, and will execute the orders given. 

Art. XXV. The lieutenant-governors, as well as the inspectors of whatever class, 
will have their residence, wherever the necessity of their office does not prohibit it, 
in the general headquarters, so that they can move easily, furnish the necessary aid 
to the army, and carry out the orders of the military chief. 

Country and liberty. 

October 17, 1895. 

The secretary of the interior, Dr. Santiago Garcia Canizares, being satisfied with 
the preceding law, I sanction it in all respects. 

Let it be promulgated in the legal form. 

Salvador Cisneros Betancotjrt, 

The President. 

October 18, 1895. 



LAW OP CIVIL MARRIAGE. 

Article I. Males of 18 years of age and females of 14 can contract marriage. 

Art. II. To contract marriage they must go to the notary of their residence, two 
witnesses being present who will sign the contract with the parties and the notary. 

Art. III. The marriage contract may contain any agreement or convention which 
the contracting parties may agree upon and which is not opposed to the nature of 
the contract nor to law. 

Art. IV. If one of the contracting parties is less than 20 years of age, the marriage 
can be contracted with notice to the father, the mother, or the guardian, according 
to the circumstances, and if these oppose the celebration of the marriage, the judge 
of the district, with knowledge of the facts, will decide the question. 

Art. V. The following reason will prevent marriage: Consanguinity in the direct 
line. In the collateral, brother and sister can not marry ; it is null by the relation- 
ship in said degrees, or by being contracted by fraud or by force. It is completely 
dissolved for incompatibility by a chronic and contagious disease, or one which will 
cause impotency, and by adultery ; moral or physical ill treatment of the wife gives 
to the wife the right to demand from the husband, when they live apart, to bear the 
expenses of the marriage; if the woman commits adultery she loses this right. 

Art. VI. In case of separation, the male children of 14 years of age and upward 
and female children of 12 and upward may elect between their parents as to resi- 
dence. Those less than 3 years of age must remain with the mother. Those who 
have not yet reached the age of puberty, but are older than 3 years, remain with 
the parent who has not given the motive for the separation. This is in case 
that the separation is caused by some guilt. If it occurs on account of sick- 
ness, the children will remain with the one who did not desire the separation. If 
the separation is on aocount of incompatibility, the parents must agree as to this 



36 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

point. On reaching the age of 3 years, the children who nntil then have heen 
with the mother, the question of their custody will he governed by the other pro- 
visions of this article. 

When the male reaches the age of 14 and the female of 12, whatever may have 
been their previous residence, they may alter it. 

Art. VII. Marriage being once dissolved, the parties may remarry, but the woman 
shall not do so until twelve months have elapsed, in order to avoid confusion of 
paternity. 

Art. VIII. Civil marriage is placed on an equal footing, as to duty and effects, 
with that recognized by our former legislation, and celebrated by the intervention 
of the church. 

Art. IX. The promise of marriage does not have any other result than that of the 
payment of the penalty, which must be stipulated by the contracting party. If no 
penalty is stipulated, no duty of payment is incurred. 

Art. X. The seduction of a female, whether she be a minor or not, obliges the 
seductor to marry the seduced or to pay a penalty in proportion to the fortune of 
both, which the judge of the district must determine. 

Country and liberty. 

Providencia, September 25, 1895. 

Garcia Canizares. 

Secretary of the Interior: 

Let the foregoing be promulgated in the legal form, it having my sanction. 
Providencia, September 25, 1895. 

Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, 

President. 



CIVXL MARRIAGE. 

Instructions which must be observed by the prefects of the Republic of Cuba in the celebra 
tion of civil marriage, exercising the function which is given them by the provisional law 
passed by the Government Council on the 25th of September, 1895. 

Article I. The prefect of the residence of the wife, who is the only one compe- 
tent to celebrate the marriage, will demand of the parties a copy of their certificate 
of birth, so that they can prove their marriageable age, which of the msfrle is 18 
years and of the female 14 years. 

Art. II. If either of the contracting parties should not have that document, 
by the omission, suppression, or burning of the register, or for any other cause, this 
credential may be substituted by a certificate of the authorities as to the nationality 
or residence, in which certificate the cause of the absence of the original certificate 
shall be stated (after previous investigation and on information received as to its 
omission) the names of the parents, their civil status, and the year and month of the 
birth of the contracting parties. 

Art. III. If it appears that the contracting parties are over 20 years of age the 
prefect will proceed to the celebration of the civil marriage without further requi- 
site than to give it publicity, for which purpose he shall affix notices in the most 
frequented places of the prefecture. 

Art. IV. But if either of the parties is less than 20 years of age the contract must 
not only be made public, as previously stated, but notice given to the father, the 
mother, or the guardian, so that if these oppose the marriage it may be suspended 
until, with a full knowledge of the facts, the question be decided by the judge, who 
must investigate, the prefect fixing a time for the opposing parties to establish and 
justify their position, which must not be longer than eight days. 

Art. V. In all cases the prefect will demand from the contracting party their 
assurance of the consent of each other, or at least that of the bride, and of her 
ability to enter into the matrimonial contract, which requisite the prefect may omit 
if he himself possesses knowledge of the circumstances. 

Art. VI. If there are no disabilities to the marriage the prefect will register in a 
book entitled Book of Civil Marriages Contracted in the Prefecture , des- 
ignating on the first page the year and making an index at the end in alphabetical 
order. 

Art. VII. The contract will be formulated in the following terms : 

"Formula of the marriage of persons of 20 years and upward: 

" In the prefecture of on the day of 189 — , before me, the prefect , 

and before me, the undersigned secretary, there appeared and. , of 20 

years and upward, the former born and resident of , son of (here the names 

of parents), and the latter born and resident of the prefecture , daughter 



AFFAIB8 IN CUBA. 37 

(her* the names of parents), who are known to the prefect and to myself, the secre- 
tary, or who, unknown, were presented to M. and P., who act as witnesses, who affirm 
that that they know them, or at least that they know her, and they so declare and 
affirm." 

" The contracting parties thereupon say, in the presence of these witnesses and 
those to this instrument, A and B, called for that purpose, that of their own free 
will, and without any violence, they promised to marry civilly, which marriage they 
now celebrate, and they agree to live in complete harmony and conjugal union, and 
never to separate unless because of incompatibility, or for any of the other reasons 
allowed by Jaw, declaring that this marriage is for the welfare and honor of both, 
and for their offspring, and as the laws and customs of good government require 
(here any agreement made between the contracting parties shall be inserted, besides 
the nuptial contract), and the register will thus end; and in order that this marriage 
shall be known, and always and in all cases have its legal force, the prefect orders 
the minutes of this contract to be drawn in the said terms, signing witli the con- 
tracting parties, and the Baid witnesses (if they can write, and if they can not others, 
at their request, may do so), to all of which I, the secretary, certify." 

FORMULA FOR THK MARRIAGE OF THOSK LESS THAN TWENTY YEARS OF AGE. 

The beginning will be as in the above formula, adding that the contracting parties 
being minors, the father, mother, or guardian appeared, who declared their assent 
and signed ( if they can write) the register, and if not, a person of their confidence 
whom they may select. The declaration as to register will be the same as in the 
preceding formula. 

FORMULA OF CIVIL MARRIAGE TO WHICH THERE 18 OPPOSITION. 

After the preamble similar to the first formula in the register is declared, that the 
father, mother, or guardian whosoever has interposed before the competent authority, 
has dissented, declares the contract not to be proper, as he explains in the following 
declaration. As to the rest, the register will be as in the first formula to its conclu- 
sion. 

But in case the father, mother, or guardian do not make any opposition, it shall be 
so declared in the register that the time fixed having passed and the person having 
the right to exercise this right having failed to do so, the marriage has been con- 
summated. 

NOTE. — Of every marriage there will be formed a file consisting of the copy of the 
register of birth, of the cedula, of the declaration of the opposition of father, 
mother, or guardian, and of the decree in which it shall be declared proper, or it is 
ordered that the marriage shall take place because they have not exercised that 
right, or because the party opposing has not complied with the law. This file shall 
be kept for future use. 

Country and liberty. 

Garcia Canizarks, 

Secretary of the Interior. 
Providencia, September 25, 1895. 

Let the foregoing be promulgated in its legal form, as I sanction the foregoing law 
in all its parts. 

Salvador Cisneros Betan court, 

President. 
Providencia, September 26, 1895. 



EXTRACT OF THE SESSIONS. 

[Republic of Cuba, Provisional Government, secretary of the'eouncil — Jos6 Clemente Vivanco, secre- 
tary of the Government Council and chancellor of the Republic] 

I certify that among the resolutions passed by this council, according to the 
minute book of the sessions, the following are to be found : 

To give two months' time to the chiefs and officers of the last revolution to join 
the new army of liberation, so as to have their ranks recognized, and four months' 
time to those in foreign countries to place themselves in communication with the 
delegates. To allow the Cuban emigrants individual freedom in the nature of their 
contributions for the revolution. To permit the export of wooden blocks on pay- 
ment of fo in gold as tax for each piece. To prohibit absolutely the export of corn 
and all forage ; of cattle, pigs, horses ; without allowing anything to enter the towns 
without the previous payment of taxes. 



38 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

To prohibit absolutely also the introduction in the towns of all kinds of fruits and 
articles of commerce which may favor the said towns and indirectly the Govern- 
ment which we are fighting. 
San Andres de la Rioja, October 9, 1895. 

(Signed) Jose Clemente Vivanco, 

Secretary of the Council. 



REGULATIONS FOR THE SERVICE OP COMMUNICATIONS. 

Article 1. The secretary of the interior will be the postmaster-general of the 
whole island, and the civil governor the chief of his territory. 

Art. 2. The postal service is established between the prefectures of the Republic 
and between the towns and prefectures near by. 

Art. 3. In order to organize the postal service, an inspector will be named for 
each district; as many chiefs as there are post-offices, and as many couriers and 
auxiliaries as are necessary for each one. 

Art. 4. The inspector is the superior chief in his district of the postal service; 
under his direction will be the postmasters, couriers, and auxiliaries. He shall 
organize the service by placing the post-offices in the most convenient places, so that 
the service shall be carried out with the greatest ease and with the greatest rapidity. 
He will employ the number of employees that are necessary. He will ask for their 
resignations whenever there is any j ustifiable cause for it. He will see that every one 
shall fulfill his duties, and shall name the hours when the couriers shall depart. He 
shall correct all defects that come under his notice, propose all modifications which he 
may think will give a better service, and give an account of all extraordinary services 
which his subalterns may render in order that they should be registered and rewarded. 

Art. 5. The chiefs will reside in the post-office, from which they can not be absent 
during the appointed hours, and they are to act whenever possible as auxiliaries to 
the prefect's office. They will receive official and private correspondence, sign 
receipts for that delivered by mail carriers, setting down the hour of delivery, and 
they will deliver, under receipt in which they will also put down the time of depart- 
ure, to the outgoing postman the mail matter in their hands, giving with it a mem- 
orandum stating the name of mail carried and the time of departure. They will also 
see that the post-offices are well attended and have in them the necessary number of 
horses required for the service, unless in cases where the service is carried on foot. 
They will report to the inspector the defects they may observe in the service, without 
forgetting the importance of their position. 

Art. 6. The mail carriers will collect daily at the appointed hours, along the route 
marked out, without delaying on the way nor hurrying their horses except in urgent 
cases that will be pointed out by the chief. They will have a receipt for the corres- 
pondence delivered to them, and will receive in exchange for the receipt a signed 
memorandum stating what mail they carry ; which memorandum they will present to 
the chief of postal department, so that he may sign it and declare that he has received 
them, and, after complying with this requisite, change it for a receipt which he will 
leave in the office of departure. 

A great service will be done by the couriers, and for that reason men of known 
honesty and valor shall be chosen, who are capable of appreciating the service they 
render their country. 

Art. 7. A mail service will be organized in every city occupied by the enemy, and 
will consist of as many chiefs and carriers as may be considered necessary. 

Art. 8. The inspectors of mails will be the immediate superior officer of the serv- 
ice in the town of his residence, and will have under his command the postmasters 
and mail carriers, and they will exercise their functions in the same manner as the 
coast inspectors. They will have special care in the selection of employees and in 
keeping all possible secrecy to elude the vigilance of the enemy. 

Art. 9. The postmasters will be considered as the chiefs of mail carriers and will 
act with the carriers, as the carriers with the drivers, always giving an account of 
any extra services rendered. 

Art. 10. The mail carriers will have charge of receiving from the postmasters the 
mail matter and carry it out of the cities for delivery to the office of the nearest 
prefect. They will give and ask for receipts as the drivers and like these must be 
honest men, sharp and brave enough with courage to overcome the difficulties that 
may arise in the performance of their important and dangerous mission and worthy 
to occupy these positions of trust in which they can lend such valuable services to 
the sacred cause every Cuban is bound to defend. 

Art. 11. The inspectors and postmasters will keep a book to record the appoint- 
ments of employees and the services rendered by them and will make up their archives 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 39 

with this book and circulars, communications, and official documents that they 
receive on the copies of those they may have to transmit. 
Country and liberty, September, 1895. 

Dr. Sanitago Garcia Canizares, 

Secretary of the Interior. 

In conformity with the preceding regulations I sanction them in every part ; and 
that it may govern and produce its corresponding effects have it published in the 
legal form. 

Country and liberty. 

Residence of the Executive in Limones, the 6th day of October, 1895. 

Salvador Cisneros, President. 



LAW FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PUBLIC TREASURY. 

Article I. All property of whatever description situated in the territory of the 
Republic comes under the jurisdiction of the secretary of the treasury; therefore 
this department shall take charge of articles of whatever description brought to this 
island by expeditions from abroad; this department also has the faculty of raising 
public loans and general taxes. 

Art. II. The secretary of the treasury will be the superior chief of his department 
throughout the Island of Cuba, and through him the subaltern officers will receive 
the orders given by the council. The duties of the secretary will be to determine, on 
information of the collectors, the taxes which shall be paid in each state and the 
form in which they shall be collected, to nominate the employees of his department 
and to discharge them for justifiable cause. He will deliver to the chiefs of corps 
and civil governors the articles which he receives from abroad ; he will give a receipt 
for the articles or sums of money which from any source whatever may be collected 
by the public treasury. He may trade with the merchandise belonging to the 
Republic ; he may lease or sell whatever be convenient and will present an account 
every three months to the council of the funds belonging to the Republic. 

Art. III. To facilitate the work of the treasury a chief of department will be 
appointed who will act as general comptroller, and in each State a collector and a 
secretary of the administration of the treasury, and for each district a delegate. 

Art. IV. The chief of the department, or general comptroller, will have charge 
of the archives of the department, will keep the books in due form, and will take 
part in all the collections and disbursements which may occur. 

Art. V. The collector will represent in each State the secretary of the treasury, 
he will give information as to the taxable property in his State, he will dictate the 
necessary measures to carry out the general orders communicated to him by the sec- 
retary of the treasury, he will collect by means of agents the taxes fixed upon, and 
he will send to the department as soon as possible the funds collected ; nevertheless 
he may deliver the amounts he may deem necessary to the chiefs of the different 
army corps, who will give a receipt for them and justify their expenditure. The 
collectors will monthly send to the department a statement of their operation. 

Art. VI. The secretary of the administration of the treasury will keep the archives 
of his respective State, will keep the books in due form, and will take part in the 
operations of the collector. 

Art. VII. The delegates or agents will be the collectors of taxes in each district, 
and the commissioners will see that the orders of the collectors of the State are car- 
ried out. They may appoint auxiliaries whenever necessary, and are authorized to 
demand the aid of the prefects and armed forces for the better fulfillment of their 
commissions. 

Country and liberty. 

Canaster, October 16, 1895. 

Severo Pina, 
Secretary of the Treasury. 

In conformity with the previous law, I sanction it in all its parts. Let it be 
promulgated in legal form. 
Country and liberty, October 18, 1885. 

Mangos de Baragua. 
Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, 

President* 



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AI'I'AIKK IN CUBA. 41 

'F'o mtk Mm general in chief for Capts. Francisco Garcia, Manuel Merrero, and 
Ensign Bnrique Boza. as theiT services arc needed by the Government. That the 
Cuban emigration! snail i>o at liberty on to the manner of contributing to the 
revolution < 

i o :ni' from abroad a copy of :l 1 1 tbe decreet passed by the government of the 
i:ni, k •. i, i n i ion. and to ordei that in oonformity with the minutes sent from bere all 
doouments shall be printed emanating from the Government as well as the constitu 
tion passed by the constituent assembly which shall be placed in our archives. 

Sbptbmbbb 24, 1805, 

To publish a circular of the secretary of the Interior, addressed to the prefects, 
inbprefecte, and other functionaries of civil order, recommending them to fulfill 
then " ipective duties. 

To approve the order given by the general in chief •■■« to the respect due peaceful 
families and their Interests, excepting in oases of military necessity or on account of 
manifest or suspected treachery, and that the secretary of the Interior address sneb 
communication to the civil governors advising tbem ol this resolution 

To appoint chief of postal service for the eastern and western district of Camaguey, 
Manuel Mancio, ami Francisco Garcia, respectively, and to confirm the appointments 
oi prefects temporarily made h.y the general in chief. 

To an I i, in genera] In chief to order all the chiefs of army corps to send to the sec 
rotary of war a detailed account of the chiefs and officers under inn orders, their 
record ol service, the positions which they occupy, ami theii respective abilities. 

To communicate to Maj. Gen. Carlos Boioff that his aides, Francisco Diaz Silveira 
mill Orenoio Nodarse remain with this Government. 

September vr,, 1895. 

To permit the ex po r t of wood In blocks after the payment of $5 in gold for each 
block. To absolutely prohibit the sale oi coin and all kinds of forage, cows, oxen, 
aii«i horses, permitting only other animals to be taken within a radius of ( > leagues 
from the towns on a payment of the tax. 

Thai, through the secretary of the treasury a detailed statement of the tax-paying 
property shall be sent to the prefects and military chiefs. 

To approve the provisional law of civil marriage passed June 4, 1809, by the Cham- 
bet of Representatives of the past revolution and to put it in force on motion of the 
secretary of the Interior. 

To approve and enforce the Instructions an to Haiii law, which were passed .June 21, 
1800, by the said chamber. 

To confirm the appointment of Inspectors of coasts and coastguards made previ* 
ouHiy hy the general In chief. 

OOTOBEB 5, 1H!)5. 

Thai, eaob secretary of state shall present to the council such projects of lawH and 
regulations nn shall he In force in their respective departments, and that the se< n 
tary of foreign relations, together with the subsocretary, the acting secretary of 
war, Hhali draw a project, ol criminal procedure for deliberation and approval by the 

council. 

OCTOBER 0, 1805. 

To absolutely prohibit the Introduction In the towns of all articles of commerce 
whloh, favoring trade indirectly, aid the enemy's Government, and to confirm the 
appointment <>i the inspector of shops and prefectures i" the district of Tunas to 
Citizen Luis Marti, provisionally given hy the general In chief of the third division 
Jose* m. Capote, on September 17, in!tr>. 

October 18, 1805. 

That the secretary of the Government shall collect all the lawn, rules, decrees, 

and all other ordeiH of thin OOUncil and an extract of the resolutions for publication 

in hook form for an edition of 500 copies. 

To approve the project of the law for the organization of the public treasury 
pr< it utiii by the secretary of the treasury. 

To approve the law lor the civil government and administration of the Republic, 
presented hy theseoretary of the interior. 

Ootobbb 21, 1805. 

To send a communication to the chiefs of army corps: to send the secretary of the 
treasury a detailed account of .'ill the contracts made by them since the beginning 
of the war, In order that in conformity with article 21 of the constitution they be 
approved. 

To give military consideration to all civil functionaries, appointing for thin pur- 
pose u commission composed of the secretary of the interior and the subsecretary 
of war, ho that they may present a report an to the riileH to be followed in thin behalf. 



42 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

October 24, 1895. 

To approve the project as to instructions of the officers of the public treasury pre- 
sented by the secretary of the treasury. 

To approve the report as to the military considerations to be enjoyed by the civil 
functionaries, presented by the secretary of the interior and the subsecretary of 
war, commissioned for this purpose at the last session, which is as follows : 

The president of the Republic, that of general in chief of the army ; the vice-pres- 
ident, and the secretaries of state, of major-generals. 

The secretary of the council and chancellor, brigadier-general; the chiefs of depart- 
ments of states, civil governors and collectors of the treasury, colonels ; the lieu- 
tenant-governor, delegate of the treasury and the secretary of administration, of the 
treasury, majors; the prefects, the inspectors of shops, of coast and communication, 
that of captains ; the subprefects, and ensigns. 

All these considerations shall be enjoyed by them unless they have higher rank. 

October 25, 1895. 

The following decree was approved : 

Article I. No one can be punished by death, or by imprisonment or reprimand, 
without having been previously judged by court-martial. 

Art. II. The factories, barns, houses, fruit trees, and useful wood trees will be 
respected by all the citizens of the Republic. 

Art. III. Housebreaking and unjustifiable raids will be severely punished. 

Art. IV. No citizen can be dispossessed from the house he occupies without justi- 
fiable motive. 

Art. V. The forces on the march, detachments, or commissions will not occupy 
inhabited houses without the consent of their owners, unless the exigeacies of the 
war require it or in extraordinary cases, when it will be justified by the officer who 
orders it. 

And for the publication thereof in accordance with the resolution of the 16th 
instant, I publish the present compilation, which is a true copy of the originals, 
on file in the archives of my secretaryship. 

Country and liberty. 

Sabanilla, October 25, 1895. 

Jose Clemente Vivanco, 

Secretary of the Council. 

There will soon be published the laws of organization and military ordinances 
drafted by the general in chief and approved by the council, which shall be joined to 
the present compilation, C. 

[Coat of Arms of Cuban Republic] 

In the name of the Republic of Cuba by delegation of the Cuban people in arms. 
The constituent assembly resolved by acclamation on this day to confer on Tomas 
Estrada Palma, the diplomatic rejaresentative and agent abroad, the title of delegate 
plenipotentiary of the Republic of Cuba. 

In witness whereof we have affixed our signatures in Jimaguayu on the 18th of 
September, 1895. 

Salvador Cesneros, B., President; RafaelManduley, Vice-President ; Enrique Loinaz 
del Castillo, Severo Pina, Fermin Valdes Dominguez, Rafael Perez Morales, Rai- 
mundo Sanchez, J. D. Castillo, Pedro Pinan de Villegas, Pedro Aguilera, Marcos 
Padilla, Rafael M. Portuondo, Dr. Santiago Garcia Canizares; Lope Recio, L. ; Oren- 
cio Nodarse, secretary ; Franco Diaz Silveira, Enrique Cespedes, Mariano Sanchez 
Vaillant, F. Lopez Leiva, secretary ; Jos6 Clemente Vivanco, secretary. 

D. 

Armt Headquarters at Cumanayagua. 
Mr. Alfredo Rego. 

My Dear Sir : I had the pleasure to receive your polite note. I see by it the 
generosity of your heart, and I thank you, in the name of my superior officers, to 
whom I will communicate your humanitarian act. 

I send the committee desired to bring back the prisoners. It takes this letter to 
you and is composed of Benito Mesa and Telesforo Ramirez. I beg you to give them 
the necessary aid, promising you that your men will be respected by this garrison. 
Yours, truly, 

(Signed.) Jose Bretones, Lieutenant. 



64th Congress, > SENATE. ( Document 

1st Session. J ( No. 213. 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 



IN RESPONSE TO 



Resolution of the Senate of March 24, 1896, requesting that the Senate be 
furnished with the correspondence of the Department of State between 
November 5, 1875, and the date of the pacification of Cuba in 1878, 
relating to the subject of mediation or intervention by the United States 
in the affairs of Cuba, transmitting report from the Secretary of State 
with such papers as seem to be called for by the resolution. 



April 15, 1896. — Keferred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be 

printed. 



To the Senate of the United States: 

In response to the resolution of March 24, 1896, requesting that the 
Senate be furnished with the correspondence of the Department of 
State between November 5, 1875, and the date of the pacification of 
Cuba in ]878, relating to the subject of mediation or intervention by 
the United States in the affairs of that island, I transmit a report from 
the Secretary of State, forwarding such papers as seem to be called for 
by the resolution in question. 

Grover Cleveland. 

Executive Mansion, 

Washington, April 15, 1896. 



The President: 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of the United States 
dated March 24, 1896, reading as follows — 

Resolved, That the President be requested, if in his opinion not incompatible with 
the public interest, to transmit to the Senate copies of all dispatches, notes, and 
telegrams in the Department of State, from and after the note from Secretary Fish 
to Mr. Gushing of November 5, 1875, and including that note, until the pacification 
of Cuba in 1878, which relate to mediation or intervention by the United States in 
the affairs of that island, together with all correspondence with foreign Governments 
relating to the same topic — 

the undersigned, Secretary of State, has the honor to submit for trans- 
mission to the Senate, if deemed compatible with the public interest, 
copies of such papers on file in this Department as appear to be called 
for by the above resolution. 

Eichard Olney. 
Department of State, 

Washington, April 15, 1896. 

43 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



SPAIN. 

Mr, Fish to Mr. Cushing. 1 

No. 266.] Department of State, 

Washington, November 5 T 1875. 

Sir : Pursuant to the intimation conveyed in my No. 242, I deem it 
necessary to recur to the general question of our relations with Spain, 
and to consider the progress which has been made in disposing of the 
outstanding questions which for some time past have seriously threat- 
ened the relations of the two countries. 

At the time of your departure for Madrid, apart from the general 
question of the unsatisfactory condition of affairs in Cuba and the fail- 
ure to suppress the revolution, several prominent questions remained 
unadjusted, the settlement of which was deemed necessary before any 
satisfactory relations with Spain could be established or maintained. 
Upon all of these you were instructed. 

The most prominent among them were the questions arising from the 
embargo and confiscation of estates of American citizens in Cuba; those 
relating to the trial of American citizens in that island, in violation of 
treaty obligations, and the claims arising out of the capture of the 
Virginias, including the trial and punishment of General Burriel. 

After the expiration of more than eighteen months, it seems advisa- 
ble to examine what progress has been made and to consider our pres- 
ent relations with Spain. 

In reference to the arbitrary seizure and withholding of the estates and 
property of citizens of the United States in Cuba, under proceedings of 
confiscation or embargo, so called, a separate instruction was addressed 
to you under date of February 6, prior to your departure for your post. 

I referred therein to the general facts surrounding these cases, to the 
arbitrary action of the authorities, by which the property of American 
citizens had been seized in violation of treaty provisions, in the absence 
of judicial proceedings, without hearing, and under such circumstances 
as to call for vigorous protest and demands on behalf of this Govern- 
ment. 

The general facts surrounding these cases are well known. 

It is not pretended, so far as I am aware, that any legal justification 
for these wrongs has been attempted on the part of the authorities of 
Spain, or that these proceedings in Cuba are defended or upheld. 

On the contrary, pursuant to the decree issued by the Government 
on the 12th of July, 1873, the illegality and indefensible character of 
these acts were admitted, and the embargoes were ordered to be 
removed and the property to be restored. 

This decree was at first received in Cuba with calm indifference, not 
even published or adverted to, and the proceedings of the authorities 
were in no notable respect changed thereby. 

1 Reprinted from House Ex. Doc. No. 90, Forty-fourth Congress, first session. 

44 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 45 

At the time of tlie visit of Senor Soler y Pla, minister of ultramar, 
the decree was in some instances recognized, and some insignificant 
steps taken, in individual cases, to comply therewith. 

In general, however, it was claimed, either that incumbrances existed, 
making a compliance therewith impossible, or the delivery was offered 
burdened by leases or incumbrances, and coupled with unfair condi- 
tions or demands, or delivery was avoided, on the ground that partic- 
ular property was confiscated, not embargoed. In fact, the decree was 
treated in general with supreme indifference. 

You were informed that the President, while not disposed to question 
the willingness of the authorities in Spain to do justice to this Govern- 
ment and her citizens, expected that means would be found to compel 
the agents in Cuba to obey the orders of the supreme Government. 

Such was the condition of the question at the date of your departure. 
Numbers of American citizens had at this time been deprived of their 
property, and were anxiously awaiting the performance of the promises 
and assurances which had been given by the Spanish Government. In 
spite of all the efforts which you have made, intelligent and energetic 
as they have been, no effectual result has been accomplished. 

Immediately after you had entered on your duties, in your No. 24, 
under date of June 2, you reported a conversation with Mr. Ulloa, hav- 
ing reference to this question, and in your No. 39, of June 22, you advise 
the Department of a note addressed to the minister of state, calling 
attention to the particular cases of Mr. Criado and Mrs. Farres de Mora, 
and to the general question. 

Although orders of disembargo had been issued, and as early as 
January, 1873, the then minister of state at Madrid had expressed sur- 
prise and regret at the continued delay in these particular cases, Mr. 
Ulloa informed you, under date of July 7, 1874, that the ministry was 
in want of information as to these cases, and that the information had 
been requested through the minister of the colonies. He added, how- 
ever, that the Spanish Government proposed to adopt, with all possible 
dispatch, a general system with respect to pending embargoes, and that 
that important question would be set at rest in conformity with the 
true interpretation of the treaty of 1795, and with that respect which 
the Spanish Government had for its obligations. 

These assurances were repeated to you by Mr. Ulloa (as reported in 
your No. 95, under date of September 7, 1874), and in your No. 153, 
dated November 23, it appears that similar statements were again 
made. 

Nevertheless, with all these cases long since brought to the attention 
of the. Spanish Government, with the case of Mrs. Farres de Mora 
before the minister of state, in connection with that of Mr. Criado, Mr. 
Ulloa took occasion to reply in the case of Mr. Criado alone, as reported 
in your No. 195, to the effect that he was not a bona fide citizen of the 
United States, and thus to avoid the decision of the issue before him. 

So far as this case was concerned, Mr. Criado was but one individual 
jointly interested with others in the decision of a principle, and because 
some flaw was supposed to have been found as to his right to claim the 
benefit of the general principle when decided, opportunity was taken 
to decline to make any decision on the principle itself. It is ascer- 
tained, however, not only that the claim that Mr. Criado is not a 
citizen is not well founded, but a trial of his claim before the mixed 
commission is progressing, and this question has not there been raised; 
but the advocate on the part of Spain is understood to have declared 
himself satisfied as to Mr. Criado's citizenship. The Spanish Govern- 



46 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

ment thus avoiding the issue, you again argued the question in the 
cases of Mrs. Farres de Mora and Mr. Delgado, as reported in your 
No. 322. 

Subsequent to this date, in several dispatches, viz, in your Nos. 387 
442, 452, and 511 (the last being dated September 8 ultimo), and in 
several telegrams, you have reported the progress of a scheme of set- 
tlement, which it was thought was about to be accomplished, when a 
change in the cabinet suddenly displaced Mr. Castro. 

Whether, had Mr. Castro remained in office, a general order or decree 
would have been issued of the character referred to in your No. 511, it 
is of course impossible to say, and whether, if issued, it would have 
received a more respectful obedience than the prior orders on this 
question, must also remain unanswered. 

However, you state that the question has been reopened, and as you 
inform me with some prospect of an adjustment. But no adjustment 
has yet been reached, and the general question has been pending for 
more than six years. 

The kindred treaty question in reference to the trial of citizens of 
the United States in Cuba by court-martial and the arrest and punish- 
ment of our citizens without trial in that island in violation of the pro- 
visions of the treaty of 1795 is substantially in the same position. 
This Government, prior to your appointment, had unfortunately been 
compelled to interfere in behalf of its citizens on several occasions 
where the authorities in Cuba had entirely disregarded not only pro- 
visions of our treaty, but the rules of civilized warfare. 

After your arrival at your post, you addressed the Government in 
reference thereto on various occasions, both in connection with the con- 
fiscation and embargo cases and separately. 

The authorities of Spain have been loud in their denunciations of acts 
of cruelty when perpetrated by the Carlists, and while in some quarters 
martial law has been looked upon as the natural refuge of the mother 
country or her colonial authorities, when deemed necessary and con- 
venient, still the same difficulty has occurred in inducing any minister 
of state to fairly meet the question, and either commit himself to a jus- 
tification of such practices or to frankly admit that they were in viola- 
tion of treaty obligations and public law and to provide a remedy. 

It is true that in isolated cases, where the Spanish Government has 
been shown that insistance on trial by courts-martial implied a state of 
war in Cuba, which might lead to logical consequences, the authorities 
have admitted the justice of our position, as in the orders sent to the 
Captain-General in 1873, proposing the trial of the sailors of the bark 
Union by the ordinary tribunals, pursuant to the treaty of 1795, as 
referred to in my No. 246; but, in general, when these questions have 
been presented, the different ministers of state have contented them- 
selves with expressing their intention to fairly respond, and the intention 
of Spain to perform all her treaty obligations. Notably among them 
you state, in your No. 195, that after having addressed Mr. Ulloa upon 
this question in Dockray's case he promised to meet the issue. 

That promise remains unperformed, and although the late negotia- 
tions by which it was hoped some solution of these questions might be 
reached would have applied also to this question the matter remains 
undisposed of, and the authorities of Cuba are enabled upon conven- 
ient occasion, in obedience to supposed necessity, to again resort to 
such military tribunals or to punish without a trial. 

This simple narration of facts as to these two questions, the promises 
made and repeated, the assurances given from time to time that some- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 47 

thing should be done, the admission of the justice of the demands of 
this country, at least to the extent of expressing regret for these wrongs 
and promising redress, followed as they have been by absolutely no 
performance and no practical steps whatever toward performance, need 
no extended comment. 

In the cases of embargo and confiscation, not only have wrongs been 
long since done, but continuing and repeated wrongs are daily inflicted. 
The authorities of Spain in Cuba, during all this time, have been and are 
using the revenues of the confiscated or embargoed estates, appropriat- 
ing much of the property itself, and in some cases executing long 
leases, or actually making sales, either on the allegation that taxes 
were due or without any excuse whatever. 

In the cases of arrest and punishment, citizens of the United States, 
in like manner, have undergone punishment because the authorities of 
Spain do not meet the issue and decide the question. 

Turning to the questions which arose from the capture of the Vir- 
gijiius, and the executions which followed, no extended reference is 
required. 

The particulars of the delivery of the vessel to this Government, and 
the payment to both Great Britain and the United States of consider- 
able sums as compensation for the acts of the authorities in ordering 
the execution of 53 of the passengers and crew under circumstances of 
peculiar brutality, have passed into history. 

So far as a payment of money can atone for the execution of these 
unprotected prisoners, that has been accomplished. 

The higher and more imperative duty which the Government of Spain 
assumed by the protocol of November 29, 1873, namely, to bring to jus- 
tice General Burriel and the other principal offenders in this tragedy, 
has been evaded and entirely neglected. 

Having made this neglect the subject of a separate instruction, under 
this date, I abstain from further reference thereto. 

While I have no desire to detract from the settlement which was 
obtained, or to depreciate the action of Mr. Castro, the minister of state, 
in the payment of the indemnity, particularly as he seemed from the 
first presentation of the question to be impressed with the justice of the 
complaint, and to regard with natural aversion the acts which gave rise 
to it, it is but just, in considering the general course of the authorities 
in Spain toward this country, to refer to the long delay in reaching an 
adjustment, and principally to the fact that a basis of settlement was 
at last reached only after every delay had apparently been exhausted. 

As you are aware, Mr. Ulloa, then minister of state, under date of 
August 18, 1874, and probably impelled by some pressing necessity, 
addressed the British charge d'affaires at Madrid, substantially agree- 
ing to settle the claim of Great Britain for the execution of the British 
subjects on board that vessel. 

The equally strong, if not stronger, claim of the United States con- 
tinued to be discussed in Madrid after the promise of settlement with 
Great Britain had been made, and information of this adjustment 
reached this Government a considerable time after its conclusion, and 
not through the authorities of Spain. Our settlement was only accom- 
plished in the month of March following. 

In doing exact justice it is but proper, however, to give Mr. Castro 
due credit for the payment of the amount finally agreed upon, without 
further controversy, and before the time stipulated for payment had 
expired. 

In adverting to these delays and failures to meet our just demands on 



48 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

the part of the authorities, I must express satisfaction with your patience 
and energy under these adverse circumstances, and particularly in 
beginning anew with each rapidly succeeding minister of state, and 
representing again and again these different questions. Progress in 
these matters has not been delayed from want of information from you, 
nor from lack of faithful and forcible presentation. 

Having touched on these particular questions, which have lately 
been prominent as disturbing causes with Spain, it is necessary to also 
refer to the general condition of affairs in Cuba as affecting our relations 
with the mother country. 

In my No. 2, of February 6, 1874 (the first instruction addressed to 
you on general matters pertaining to your mission), I referred at length 
to the views entertained by the President and to the position of this 
Government. 

It was then more than five years since an organized insurrection had 
broken out which the Government of Spain had been entirely unable to 
suppress. At that time the firm conviction of the President was 
announced that whatever might be the vicissitudes of the struggle, and 
whatever efforts might be put forth by the Spanish power in Cuba, no 
doubt could be entertained that the final issue of the conflict would be 
to break the bonds which attached Cuba as a colony to Spain. 

While remembering and observing the duties which this Government, 
as one of the family of nations, owes to another member, by public law, 
treaties, or the particular statutes of the United States, it would be idle 
to attempt to conceal the interest and sympathy with which Americans 
in the United States regard any attempt of a numerous people on this 
continent to be relieved of ties which hold them in the position of colo- 
nial subjection to a distant power, and to assume the independence and 
right of self-control which natural rights and the spirit of the age accord 
to them. 

When, moreover, this struggle, in progress on our very borders, from 
its commencement has involved the property and interests of citizens of 
the United States, has disturbed our tranquillity and commerce, has 
called upon us not infrequently to witness barbarous violations of the 
rules of civilized warfare, and compelled us for the sake of humanity to 
raise our voice by way of protest; and when, more than all, we see in the 
contest the final struggle in this hemisphere between slavery and free- 
dom, it would be strange indeed if the Government and people of this 
country failed at any time to take peculiar interest in the termination 
of such contest. 

In this early instruction was expressed the sincere and unselfish hope 
of the President that the Government of Spain would seek some honor- 
able and satisfactory adjustment, based upon emancipation and self- 
government, which would restore peace and afford a prospect of a return 
of prosperity to Cuba. 

Almost two years have passed since those instructions were issued 
and those strong hopes expressed, and it would appear that the situa- 
tion has in no respect improved. 

The horrors of war have in no perceptible measure abated; the incon- 
veniences and injuries which we then suffered have remained, and 
others have been added; the ravages of war have touched new parts 
of the island, and well-nigh ruined its financial and agricultural sys- 
tem and its relations to the commerce of the world. No effective steps 
have been taken to establish reforms or remedy abuses, and the effort 
to suppress the insurrection by force alone has been a complete failure. 

In the meantime the material interests of trade and of commerce are 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 49 

impaired to a degree which calls for remonstrance, if not for another 
line of conduct, on the part of all commercial nations. 

Whether it be from the severity and inhumanity with which the effort 
has been made to suppress the insurrection, and from a supposed justi- 
fication of retaliation for violations of the rules of civilized warfare by 
other violations and by acts of barbarism, of incendiarism, and outrage, 
the world is witnessing on the part of the insurgents, whom Spain still 
claims as subjects, and for whose acts, if subjects, Spain must be held 
accountable in the judgment of the world, a warfare, not of the legiti- 
mate strife of relative force and strength, but of pillage and incendia- 
rism, the burning of estates and of sugar mills, the destruction of the 
means of production and of the wealth of the island. 

The United States purchases more largely than any other people of 
the productions of the Island of Cuba, and therefore, more than any 
other for this reason, and still more by reason of its immediate neigh- 
borhood, is interested in the arrest of a system of wanton destruction 
which disgraces the age and affects every commercial people on the 
face of the globe. 

Under these circumstances, and in view of the fact that Spain has 
rejected all suggestions of reform or offers of mediation made by this 
Government, and has refused all measures looking to a reconciliation, 
except on terms which make reconciliation an impossibility, the diffi- 
culty of the situation becomes increased. 

When, however, in addition to these general causes of difficulty, we 
find the Spanish Government neglectful also of the obligations of 
treaties and solemn compacts and unwilling to afford any redress for 
long-continued and well-founded wrongs suffered by our citizens, it 
becomes a serious question how long such a condition of things can or 
should be allowed to exist, and compels us to inquire whether the point 
has not been reached where longer endurance ceases to be possible. 

During all this time, and under these aggravated circumstances, this 
Government has not failed to perform her obligations to Spain as scrupu- 
lously as toward other nations. 

In fact, it might be said that we have not only been long suffering, 
because of the embarrassments surrounding the Spanish Government, 
but particularly careful to give no occasion for complaint for the same 
reason. 

I regret to say that the authorities of Spain have not at all times 
appreciated our intentions or our purposes in these respects, and, while 
insisting that a state of war does not exist in Cuba and that no rights 
as belligerents should be accorded to the insurrectionists, have at the 
same time demanded for themselves all the rights and privileges which 
flow from actual and acknowledged war. 

It will be apparent that such a state of things can not continue. It 
is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of our relations with Spain, 
even on their present footing, that our just demands for the return to 
citizens of the United States of their estates in Cuba, unincumbered, 
and for securing to them a trial for offenses according to treaty provi- 
sions and all other rights guaranteed by treaty and by public law should 
be complied with. 

Whether the Spanish Government, appreciating the forbearance of 
this country, will speedily and satisfactorily adjust the pending ques- 
tions, not by the issue of empty orders or decrees without force or effect 
in Cuba, but by comprehensive and firm measures which shall every- 
where be respected, I anxiously await further intelligence. 

Moreover, apart from these particular questions, in the opinion of the 
4 



50 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

President the time has arrived when the interests of this country, the 
preservation of its commerce, and the instincts of humanity alike 
demand that some speedy and satisfactory ending be made of the strife 
that is devastating Cuba. 

A disastrous conflict of more than seven years' duration has demon- 
strated the inability of Spain to maintain peace and order in an island 
lying at our door. Desolation and destruction of life and property have 
been the only results of this conflict. 

The United States sympathizes in the fact that this inability results 
in a large degree from the unhappy condition of Spain at home and to 
some extent from the distractions which are dividing her people. But 
the fact remains. Added to this are the large expanse of ocean sepa- 
rating the peninsula from the island and the want of harmony and of 
personal sympathy between the inhabitants of the territory of the 
home government and those of the colony, the distinction of classes in 
the latter between rulers and subjects, the want of adaptation of the 
ancient colonial system of Spain to the present times and to the ideas 
which the events of the past age have impressed upon the peoples of 
every reading and thinking country. 

Great Britain, wisely, has relaxed the old system of colonial depend- 
ence, and is reaping the benefits in the contentedness and peaceful 
prosecution of the arts of peace and in the channels of commerce and 
of industry, in colonies which under restraint might have questioned 
and resisted the power of control from a distant government and might 
have exhibited, as does Cuba, a chronic condition of insurrection, tur- 
bulence, and rebellion. 

In addition to all this, it can not be questioned that the continued 
maintenance, in the face of decrees and enactments to the contrary, of 
a compulsory system of slave labor is a cause of disquiet and of excite- 
ment to a large class in the island, as also in the United States, which 
the Government of Spain has led us, by very distinct assurances, to 
expect should be removed, and which the enlightened Christianity of 
the age condemns. 

The contest and disorder in Cuba affect the United States directly 
and injuriously by the presence in this country of partisans of the revolt 
who have fled hither (in consequence of the proximity of territory) as 
to a political asylum, and who, by their plottings, are disturbers of the 
public peace. 

The United States has exerted itself to the utmost, for seven years, 
to repress unlawful acts on the part of these self-exiled subjects of 
Spain, relying on the promise of Spain to pacify the island. Seven 
years of strain on the powers of this Government to fulfill all that the 
most exacting demands of one Government can make, under any doc- 
trine or claim of international obligation, upon another, have not wit- 
nessed the much hoped for pacification. The United States feels itself 
entitled to be relieved of this strain. 

The severe measures, injurious to the United States and often in con- 
flict with public law, which the colonial officers have taken to subdue the 
insurrection ; the indifference, and ofttimes the offensive assaults upon 
the just susceptibilities of the people of the United States and their 
Government, which have characterized that portion of the peninsular 
population of Havana which has sustained and upheld, if it has not con- 
trolled, successive governors-general, and which have led to the disregard 
of orders and decrees which the more enlarged wisdom and the more 
friendly councils of the home Government had enacted ; the cruelty and 
inhumanity which have characterized the contest, both on the part of 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 51 

the colonial government and of the revolt, for seven years, and the 
destruction of valuable properties and industries by arson and pillage, 
which Spain appears unable, however desirous, to prevent and stop, in 
an island 3,000 miles distant from her shores, but lyiug within sight of 
our coast, with which trade and constant intercourse are unavoidable, 
are causes of annoyance and of injury to the United States, which a 
people can not be expected to tolerate without the assured prospect of 
their termination. 

The United States has more than once been solicited by the insur- 
gents to extend to them its aid, but has for years hitherto resisted such 
solicitation, and has endeavored by the tender of its good offices, in 
the way of mediation, advice, and remonstrance, to bring to an end a 
great evil, which has pressed sorely upon the interests both of the 
Government and of the people of the United States, as also upon the 
commercial interests of other nations. 

A sincere friendship for Spain, and for her people, whether penin- 
sular or insular, and an equally sincere reluctance to adopt any meas- 
ures which might injure or humble the ancient ally of the United 
States, has characterized the conduct of this Government in every step 
during these sad and distressing years, and the President is still ani- 
mated by the same feelings, and desires above all things to aid her and 
her people to enter once more upon the path of safety and repose. 

It will be remembered that the President, in the year 1869, tendered 
the good offices of the United States for the purpose of bringing to a 
close the civil war in Cuba. This offer was made delicately, in good 
faith, and in friendship to both parties to the contest. 

General Prim, as the representative of the Spanish Government, 
while recognizing the good faith and friendship with which this offer 
was made, replied : 

We can better proceed in the present situation of things without even this friendly 
intervention. A time will come when the good offices of the United States will be 
not only useful but indispensable in the final arrangements between Spain and 
Cuba. We will ascertain the form in which they can be employed and confidently 
count upon your assistance. 

The United States replied that its good offices for that object would 
be at any time at the service of the parties to the conflict. This Gov- 
ernment has ever since been ready thus to aid in restoring peace and 
quiet. 

The Government of the United States has heretofore given expression 
to no policy in reference to the insurrection in Cuba, because it has 
honestly and sincerely hoped that no declaration of policy on its part 
would be required. 

The President feels that longer reticence would be inconsistent with 
the interests of both Governments. 

Our relations with Spain are in that critical position that another 
seizure similar to that of the Virginias, other executions of citizens of 
the United States in Cuba, other wrongs of a less objectionable charac- 
ter even than many which have been already suffered by our citizens 
with simple remonstrance, or possibly even some new act of excep- 
tional severity in Cuba, may suddenly produce a feeling and excitement 
which might force events which this Government anxiously desires to 
avoid. 

The President hopes that Spain may spontaneously adopt measures 
looking to a reconciliation and to the speedy restoration of peace ard 
the organization of a stable and satisfactory system of government in 
the Island of Cuba. 



52 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

In the absence of any prospect of a termination of the war, or of any 
change in the manner in which it has been conducted on either side, he 
feels that the time is at hand when it may be the duty of other Govern- 
ments to intervene, solely with a view of bringing to an end a dis- 
astrous and destructive conflict, and of restoring peace in the island of 
Cuba. No Government is more deeply interested in the order and 
peaceful administration of this island than is that of the United States, 
and none has suffered as has the United States from the condition 
which has obtained there during the past six or seven years. He will, 
therefore, feel it his duty at an early day to submit the subject in this 
light, and accompanied by an expression of the views above presented, 
for the consideration of Congress. 

This conclusion is reached with reluctance and regret. 

It is reached after every other expedient has been attempted and 
proved a failure, and in the firm conviction that the period has at last 
arrived when no other course remains for this Government. 

It is believed to be a just and friendly act to frankly communicate 
this conclusion to the Spanish Government. 

You will therefore take an early occasion thus to inform that Gov- 
ernment. 

In making the communication, it is the earnest desire of the President 
to impress upon the authorities of Spain the continued friendly dispo- 
sition of this Government, and that it has no ulterior or selfish objects 
in view and no desire to become a party in the conflict, but is moved 
solely by the imperative necessities of a proper regard to its own pro- 
tection and its own interests and the interests of humanity, and, as we 
firmly believe, in the ultimate interest of Spain itself. 

In informing the Spanish Government of these conclusions pursuant 
hereto, you are authorized to read this instruction to the minister of 
state, or to state the substance and purport thereof, as you may deem 
most advisable. 

You will, of course, keep me advised, by telegraph and by post, of 
your proceedings pursuant to this instruction. 
I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 267.] Department of State, 

Washington, November 5, 1875. 

Sir : Herewith you will receive instruction No. 266, being a general 
review of our relations with Spain, and the announcement of certain con- 
clusions of the President which you are therein instructed to commu- 
nicate to the Government of Spain. 

It has been deemed proper to send confidentially a copy of instruc- 
tion No. 266 to General Schenck, the minister of the United States at 
London, with instructions to read the same to Lord Derby, and to 
suggest to the British Government that it would be agreeable to the 
United States, and in our opinion tend to the adjustment of the ques- 
tion of the pacification of Cuba, if not to the preservation of general 
peace, if the British Government would support by its influence the 
position assumed by this Government. 

A copy of this instruction to General Schenck is herewith inclosed. 

He has been instructed, as you will perceive, to notify the Depart- 
ment by telegraph of the result of this communication to Lord Derby. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 53 

Should it appear probable that the British Government will enforce 
the position of tltis Government, it may be wise to defer your interview 
with the minister of state until joint action can be agreed upon. 

Should that Government hesitate or decline, you will be at once 
instructed to proceed to carry out the instructions contained in No. 
266. In case the Government of Great Britain shall determine to sup- 
port our position by its influence, proper instructions will doubtless be 
sent to its representative in Madrid to that effect. 

As no great delay will be occasioned thereby, it is deemed better to 
postpone your action in communicating these conclusions until General 
Schenck shall have communicated the views of the British Government, 
by telegraph, to the Department, and telegraphic instructions can be 
sent you based thereon. 

A copy of instruction No. 266 will also shortly be sent to all our 
diplomatic representatives, in confidence, for their information, and the 
ministers to the principal European courts will be instructed to com- 
municate its purport to the Governments to which they are respectively 
accredited. 

I am, sir, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, November 25, 1875. 

Your Nos. 266 and 267 have been just received, but not 265. 

You call for my opinion; I give it according to my best lights. If 
Great Britain cooperates, Spain will succumb, in sullen despair, to 
whatever terms the two Governments may jointly dictate; but if Great 
Britain refuses to cooperate, Spain will conclude that she has the sym- 
pathy of all European powers ; more especially, as she thinks she has 
now gone, by her note of the 15th, to the ultimate point in satisfaction 
of each of the particular griefs of the United States. 

In other words, there will be war, and a popular though desperate 
one on the part of Spain, unless she can be convinced that the real and 
true object of the contemplated measure is to prevent war, as I under- 
stand it to be intended. But to ward off war will exact the steady 
exercise of all my personal influence here (which my colleagues tell me 
is great), and will require that influence to be efficiently backed by my 
Government both here and at Washington. 

I am here to "obey orders though it break owners," as the ship- 
masters say. 

I earnestly beg you, therefore, in proportion as you desire peace, to 
address me specific and explicit replies in regard to certain most need- 
ful instructions which I shall ask for by telegram, provided a negative 
answer comes from Great Britain. 

Cushing. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 684.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, November 25, 1875. 
Sir : I have received your dispatches Nos. 266 and 267. No. 265 has 
not yet come to hand. 



54 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

My telegram of this date, as called for by you, communicates my 
impression of the probable effects of the contemplated measure. 

Although what is most important in the question will reach you by 
that telegram long before the arrival of this dispatch, yet it may not be 
amiss to add here explanations on some less important, but closely 
related, points. 

(1) The military situation. — Many of the most thoughtful men in Spain 
really long for a foreign war as the only efficient remedy for the domes- 
tic dissensions which now distract the country. 

Moreover, the statesmen of the country foresee that on the close of 
the war in the North, which can not fail to come in the course of the 
winter or early in the spring, there will be an army of two or three 
hundred thousand men to dispose- of, with its officers, who will be but 
too much disposed to dominate in public affairs and push the civilians 
into the background. 

In addition to which, there is a multitude of unthoughtful men, proud, 
angry, resentful, who would gladly rush into a war with the United 
States. 

Finally, there are the mercenary, the ambitious, the declassed and 
the bad, to whom war presents the usual attractions. Multis utile 
bellum, says Sallust. 

It is the received opinion in Spain that for the commencing period of 
a war she has a more efficient navy than ours. 

In these circumstances, if Great Britain declines to cooperate with 
us, Spain will, at the least, despatch to Cuba at once a large fleet, laden 
with troops, there to await the eventualities of diplomacy; and she 
may break off relations, with a hostile appeal to the European Powers. 

(2) The diplomatic question. — I profess that the contents of your No. 
266, from page 40 and the words "In my No. 2" to the end, strike me 
as a most powerful and effective presentation of the general consider- 
ations inducing the proposed announcement of intervention. 

I must frankly say, however (and the emergency demands frankness), 
that the previous contents of the dispatch, from page 1 to page 20, 
inclusive, do not strike me with equal force of themselves, either as to 
effect on the Spanish mind or on that of Europe, more especially as 
appearing here (although not written) after the delivery of the Spanish 
note of the 15th instant. 1 I almost wish it were less specific. 

I should have made a practical suggestion in this respect by tele- 
gram but for the supposition that the contents will have been already 
communicated to Great Britain and other Governments of Europe. 

I have no wish to exaggerate the results lately attained by me here. 
I can not but think, however, that the contents of the late Spanish note, 
if faithfully carried out in detail, as they certainly would be, go far 
toward satisfying the particular reclamations of the United States. 

If, however, the terms of that note, coming in after your dispatch was 
written, tend to weaken the force of your argument, still it may, never- 
theless, be serviceable to aid you in moderating the temper of Congress. 
I have, etc., 

0. Gushing. 

ir The Spanish note to Mr. Cushing contained proposals for adjustment of existing 
differences between the United States and Spain. Its substance was telegraphed to 
Mr. Fish by Mr. Cushing November 16, 1875. It has no reference to mediation or 
intervention by the United States in the affairs of Cuba. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 55 

ilr. Gushing to Mr. Fish, 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, November 26, 1875. 

The response of England lingers. Time passes. I begin with ques- 
tions for either alternative: First. I can not read your dispatch to the 
minister; he does not understand English. To state its substance to 
him orally would be doing extreme injustice to the dispatch. 

In just such a case Mr. Canning refused to hear anything without a 
copy of the document. (Lawrence's Wheaton, seventh edition, p. 388.) 

Why not give a copy to the Spauish minister 1 ? 

Second. Will you authorize me, after the Spanish minister is informed, 
in whatever way, of the contents of the document, to talk to him as a 
friend and wellwisher regarding what, in my opinion, Spain ought to 
do and may honorably do in this emergency % 

Gushing. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

"No. 686.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, November 26, 1875. 

Sir : My dispatches of yesterday were prepared for the French cou- 
rier; but as he does not depart until to-day, opportunity is afforded me 
of adding a supplement to my No. 684. 

The finances of Spain are in a very bad condition, simply for want 
of credit in the stock markets of Europe. 

Nevertheless, she is enabled to carry a large floating debt by loans 
on short time, say six months or a year, aud to renew the bonds as 
they fall due by merely adding the interest to the mass of such floating 
debt. 

But she has considerable resources in reserve for times and occasions 
of desperation. 

First. The Bank of Spain possesses a large metallic fund which the 
Government could and would seize upon in such emergency, in imita- 
tion of what Great Britain did in the wars of the French Bevolution. 

Second. There is really much wealth in the country, and it would 
be drawn forth in a war with the United States. Patriotic gifts 
would come in, forced loans would be submitted to, and the domestic 
capitalists would more freely advance to the Government. 

Third. Spain might recur to forms of credit, which all other nations 
resort to in the last necessity, as we ourselves did in the legal-tender 
act. The process would begin with indefinite issue of bills of the Bank 
of Spain in the whole country, instead of, as now, in the province of 
Madrid alone; and it would extend to the issue of treasury notes or 
certificates. To be sure, such action would speedily raise the price 
of gold, but not to a higher point than it reached with us in similar 
circumstances. 

Meanwhile the augmented circulation would serve, as it did with us, 
to prompt new enterprises, and thus add to the actual productive 
resources of the country, not only in industries dependent on war, but 
in mines and in undeveloped agriculture, to the ultimate advantages of 
Spain. 

The Spaniards are a people preeminently sober in food and drink, 
economical, and enduring under privations and hardships — as you may 



56 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

infer from the wages of labor, which vary according to the quality from 
2 to 3 or 4 pesetas a day, where, in the United States, similar labor 
would be reckoned at the same number of dollars. Hence, armies are 
contentedly supported here, and always have been, so cheaply as to con- 
stitute a real addition to the relative military resources of Spain. The 
contrast in this respect between Spanish and English soldiers struck the 
Duke of Wellington. 

I note these facts as being material and important in the present ques- 
tion. That is, we must not confide in a deficiency of financial resources 
standing in the way if Spain be hard pushed and stirred up to make 
sacrifices in case of a war with the United States. 

And the finances of Spain are not in a much worse condition than 
they were in the time of Charles Y and his successors of the Austrian 
dynasty. Great loans were rarer then than now. Spain relied much 
on wealthy Jews for anticipations, although Jews and Gentiles, in the 
matter of money lending, incurred hazards quite in proportion to the 
profits, as illustrated in the hardships of the Jews in Spain and the 
case of Jacques Coeur in France. In truth, the Fuggers of Augsburg 
are among the few houses of that class which remain to this day. Hence 
the terrible financial straits which the Philips — II, III, and IY — were 
constantly suffering in Spain. Nevertheless, they sustained great wars 
all over the world. 

I add that, according to telegrams received from Habana, the mission 
of Mr. Eubi has already produced important results, so that he is able 
to make assurance of having equalized the revenue and the expendi- 
tures and of undertaking to pay regularly all current obligations after 
the 1st of January. 

I have, etc., 0. Gushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 1 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, November 27, 187$. 
Gushing, Minister, Madrid: 

Schenck was instructed to delay presentation of 266, in consequence 
of your telegram of 16th. 

The President's message will discountenance recognition of either 
belligerency or independence; will refer to the injuries to the United 
States and its citizens from the long-continued struggle and the absence 
of prospect of termination; will intimate intervention as an ultimate 
necessity unless satisfactory results be soon reached, but will abstain 
from advising it at present; will refer to pending proposals not yet 
received here, with hope that they may afford the relief required and 
lead to a satisfactory settlement and removal of causes of grief; will 
intimate that a communication will soon be made to Congress as to the 
result of the proposals now on their way, and that, if it do not satisfac- 
torily adjust all important questions, he will before long make a recom- 
mendation to Congress of the course to be pursued. 

The above is for your guidance in your interview with minister; be 
careful that it be not communicated by minister or otherwise to the 
press or public in anticipation of what will be done here. 

The instruction 266 is not intended as minatory in any sense but ia 

'Reprinted from House Ex. Doc. No. 90, Forty-fourth Congress, first session, bttt 

omissions supplied. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



57 



the spirit of friendship, as a notice of a necessity which may be forced 
upon the President, but which he hopes to avoid, and desires Spain to 
aid him in escaping. We are sincerely desirous to preserve peace and 
to establish all relations with Spain on the most amicable and libera 1 
basis, but we must be relieved and be secure as to the future, and you 
may give positive assurances to this effect. 

You may give copy of 266 to minister, and may speak in the sense 
indicated in your telegram of yesterday, provided it be not to do away 
the object of the instruction. 

You will make the communication and present copy instruction with- 
out waiting for presentation in London. 

Schenck will to-day be instructed to read paper as soon as he can. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Gushing to Air. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, November 30, 1875. 
Dispatch of 5th just delivered to minister of state with verbal expla- 
nations as near as foreign idiom would permit in the exact sense of 
telegram of 27th. Further conference on the subject deferred until 
after the minister shall have had the dispatch translated, and shall 
have duly considered its contents. Interview in good spirit. 

CUSHING. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 692.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, November 30, 1875. 

Sir : I received your telegram of the 27th on the afternoon of Sunday, 
the 28th, and became informed of its contents just in season to be able 
to avail myself of the opportunity of meeting the minister of state at 
the King's dinner in the evening, as recounted in another dispatch, to 
arrange for an interview with him the ensuing Tuesday. 

I repaired to the ministry of state, therefore, to-day, in pursuance of 
that appointment, for the purpose of communicating to him the contents 
of your telegram and delivering a copy of your dispatch of the 5th. 

Not being willing to trust myself to extemporaneous representation 
in a foreign language in a matter of so much gravity, I prepared a 
written statement in Spanish of what I had to say, in form to be read 
to the minister. 

I explained this to Mr. Calderon y Collantes immediately on entering, 
and without further preface proceeded to read to him the paper, of 
which copy and translation are annexed. 

After listening attentively to the contents of the paper as read, he 
requested me to leave it with him; to which I saw no objection, as it 
would thus assume almost the character of a protocol. 

I then offered to read to him the dispatch of the 5th, or, if he preferred, 
to deliver to him a copy. He of course chose the latter alternative. 

I then repeated the request already made, that before taking any 
definite action on the subject he would favor me with another interview. 
He assented, with the remark that Spain was in no hurry to go to war 



58 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

with the United States ; to which I added, that neither were the United 
States in a hurry to go to war with Spain. 

A little to my surprise, he took the whole matter very coolly, not- 
withstanding that possible "intervention" was expressly mentioned in 
my oral statement, and said nothing as to the matter of that, except to 
express satisfaction at learning that the President proposed to dis- 
countenance the concession of recognition of independence or even of 
belligerence to the insurgents of Cuba. 

We then conversed a few minutes on indifferent matters not mate- 
rial to the present subject, except in one particular. He said he had 
heard we were building a fleet of ironclads. I replied that it might be 
so, but that no such thing was within my knowledge; that, for myself, 
I had not a very high opinion of the impenetrability or the manage- 
ableness of the huge ironclads which had been built in England, France, 
and Spain. 

This remark of mine led us into reflections on the misadventures of 
the British Captain, Agincourt, Vanguard, and Iron Duke, and the com- 
parative value of them and of the Russian Popoffkas, with which the 
interview ended. 

I have, etc., O. Oushino. 



[Appendix B in No. 692.— Translation of remarks of Mr. Cushing to Mr. Calderon y Collantes, read in 
the interview of November 30, 1875.] 

My Government orders me to give to your excellency frank and detailed explana- 
tions with respect to the actual state of the questions pending between the two 
Governments. 

On receiving your note of the 15th of the current month, I sent it to London by 
a special messenger, in order to insure its prompt transmission to Washington. It 
ought to arrive in the first days of December; that is to say, a little before the 
meeting of Congress. 

I addressed at the same time an extended telegram to my Government, giving it a 
re"sum6 of the contents of the note in a favorable sense, and subsequently other tele- 
grams in the same sense. 

The effect of the telegrams has been advantageous to the good understanding of 
the two Governments. 

Prior to the delivery of the Spanish note of the 15th and to the reception of my 
telegrams, my Government had addressed to me a dispatch, dated the 5th of the current 
month, in which are fully recited the subsisting causes of disagreement, all having 
relation to the condition of Cuba; and in the case of failure to make an amicable 
settlement of those disagreements, there would suggest itself the only remedy which, 
in the opinion of the President, remains for the United States, and which he pro- 
posed to present to Congress in his message. 

But now, in the hope that the contents of the Spanish note may be satisfactory, 
the President desists from the concrete purpose expressed in the dispatch of the 5th 
and substitutes a proposition which is merely expectant. 

Meanwhile, I am charged in the first plaoe to explain to you confidentially what 
will be the actual text of the message. 

The President will discountenance the concession of the recognition of either 
independence or belligerence to the insurgents of Cuba; he will allude to the 
injuries inflicted upon the United States and on their citizens by the prolonged 
struggle in Cuba, and the absence as yet of clear indications of its termination ; he 
will intimate, as an ulterior necessity, intervention, unless positive results be soon 
reached, but he will abstain from advising it at present; he will make reference to 
proposals awaited, but not yet received, in the prospect that those propositions 
may lead to a satisfactory settlement of all questions of importance ; if not, he will 
submit in due time a recommendation for the consideration of Congress. 

I am charged to express to you the hope that these explanations will be received 
by the Government of His Majesty in the friendly spirit which animates my Govern- 
ment in giving them, and to beg you to consider this unusual and friendly step of 
an anticipated communication of the contents of the President's message as abso- 
lutely confidential, in order to guard against premature discussions in the press, 
whether of Europe or of America. 

Moreover, I am instructed to deliver to you a copy of the said dispatch of the 5th 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 59 

Instant, written before the delivery to me of the Spanish note, and, as is to be sup- 
posed, without knowledge of the intentions of the Government of His Majesty. 

This dispatch is not conceived in any minatory sense, but on the contrary, in the 
spirit of friendship, as a notice of a pressing necessity, which may force the hand of 
the President in given circumstances, from which he desires to save himself, and 
desires Spain to aid him in escaping them. He sincerely desires to maintain peace 
and to establish the relations of the United States with Spain upon the most friendly 
and most liberal bases, provided they contain satisfaction for the present and security 
for the future; and I am authorized, to this end, to offer the most positive assurances 
to the Government of His Majesty. 

It remains for me to place in your hands the copy of the dispatch of the 5th. It 
is somewhat long and merits to be read attentively, as well by reason of its contin- 
gent importance as for its tone of moderation and of consideration and good will 
toward Spain. 

In conclusion, I beg you, after having read the dispatch and made yourself 
acquainted with its contents, and before taking any definite resolution in the mat- 
ter, to do me the favor to grant me another private interview, in order that I may 
present to you some pertinent observations on my part and on the part of my 
Government. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 698.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, December 3, 1875. 

Sir: Mr. Layard called on me yesterday to say that he had just 
received instructions by telegraph from Lord Derby to confer with me 
on the subject of Cuba. 

He proceeded to say that General Schenck had read to Lord Derby 
your No. 266, and that the matter was under consideration in the 
British cabinet. 

He also spoke of his knowledge of conferences between you and Sir 
Edward Thornton in this respect, without stating whether that knowl- 
edge came to him directly from Sir Edward or indirectly through Lord 
Derby. 

Mr. Layard expressed readiness to back me in the matter of Cuba so 
soon as our respective Governments should have settled on a line of 
action, and instructed us to that effect. 

He expresses great discontent at the failure of Spain to pay atten- 
tion to the various claims, thirteen in number, presented by him in 
behalf of his Government, and says that his situation will be untenable 
here without some improvement in the conduct of the business of the 
ministry of state. 

He thinks Great Britain has abundant cause of her own to interfere 
in the affairs of Cuba under her slave-trade treaties with Spain. 

Further conference between us was deferred until hearing again from 
Lord Derby. 

I received from General Schenck on the 1st instant a telegram dated 
the 30th ultimo, in the following words : 

Cushing, Minister, Madrid: 

Have communicated to Lord Derby your instruction 266. He will give me viewa 
of this Government on Thursday. 

Schenck, Minister. 

I assume that the telegram thus addressed to you within, and on 
cover to me, is a duplicate transmitted to me in this form in order to 
save time and labor of preparing a separate and particular telegram for 
the legation. 

I await information as to the decision to have been taken by Lord 
Derby yesterday, as stated by General Schenck. 

I have, etc., O. Cushing. 



60 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 699.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, December 3, 1875. 

Sra : I annex hereto translated extract of an article of last night in 
the Epoca, which constitutes the preface of that journal to a transla- 
tion it inserts of a long article of antifilibuster spirit from the New 
York Herald. 

The definite references of the Epoca to my interview with Mr. 
Calderon y Collantes on the 30th, and. to the telegrams received from 
Mr. Mantilla, sufficiently show that the Epoca received its information 
from some member of the Government. 

I have never mentioned the contents, date, or even existence of your 
No. 266 to anybody except Mr. Oalderon y Collantes, not even to Mr. 
Layard, until he came to speak to me concerning it, on the 1st instant, 
by telegraphic direction from Lord Derby, as reported in another 
dispatch. 

Of course all which the Epoca says of the contents of that note 
must have been derived from the Government. 

Four things are, it seems to me, worth noting in that article: 

First. In speaking of your No. 266, it undertakes to characterize the 
first part, devoted to the exposition of particular grievances, but makes 
no allusion to the second part. 

Secondly. It gives quite a novel turn to the question of intervention 
and the relations of Great Britain to that subject, supposing it to be on 
the part of some "great continental Power" between the United States 
and Spain. I have no knowledge, nor any ground of conjecture even, 
as to what Power is thus intended. Is it Germany? Or France? Or 
Russia? 

Thirdly. The Epoca seems to put forward the article of the Herald 
by way of insinuating the opposition of Great Britain to any positive 
action of ours on the side of Cuba. 

Fourthly. It is observable that the Epoca, thus inspired by the Gov- 
ernment, does not speak excitedly, or otherwise betray signs of irrita- 
tion on the part of the Government on occasion of the suggestion of 
our possible intervention, ex nomine, as intimated in your No. 266, and 
also expressly in the oral statement made by me to Mr. Calderon y 
Collantes. 

I have, etc., C. Cushing. 

[Inclosure in No, 699.— Appendix A, No. 699.— Translated extract of leading article in the Epoca of 

December 2, 1875.] 

We have not been mistaken in asserting time and again that, whatever might be 
the language of the American papers, and however offensive might appear to us the 
attitude of that Government, we had such confidence in our own right, in the justice 
of our cause, and in the equity of the Government of Washington, even though 
appearances represented it as inclined to political extremes, that we have not for an 
instant become alarmed in view of the bravado of a few journals, nor even because 
of the too-spirited notes which, according to the public voice, were being exchanged 
between the two Cabinets. Our hopes have not been fallacious, and we are sincerely 
glad of it, although this would not have prevented us from meeting with manly 
resolution any precipitate resolve of the North Americans, sure of not being alone in 
the contest, and that, however prostrated we may be deemed to be, we still have the 
means of inflicting serious injuries upon those who might go so far as to risk an 
armed struggle. 

Our hopes have not been deceptive, we repeat, because at the very time that, 
according to public report, there was received in Madrid a most lengthy note of the 
date of the 5th of November, energetically recapitulating the grievances of which 
President Grant thought he had the right to complain, there were also received impor- 
tant official telegrams wherein, in view of the firm attitude and, at the aame time, of 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 61 

the decorous explanations given by our Government, the attitnde of the United States 
essentially changed, the terms of the message were modified, all motive of misun- 
derstanding disappeared, and supposition even went so far as to hint that the Gov- 
ernment of the White House would not be averse to admitting the mediation of a great 
continental Power (y hasta se avanzaba a" suponer que el Gobierno de la Casa 
Blanca no estaria distante de admitir la mediacion de una gran potencia continental). 

If these notices are not entirely official, they combine all the traits 
of likelihood, they circulate and are believed in diplomatic centers, and 
all the press echoes these and like indications. 

The Correspondencia speaks of a friendly conference held by the ad interim 
minister of state, Mr. Calderon y Collantes, with the Honorable Mr. Caleb Cushing, 
and gives high praise to the rectitude, the elevated spirit of justice, and the loyalty 
and conciliatory judgment which the American representative has brought to bear 
on these questions. 

In etfect, without omitting in the slightest degree to execute the instructions of 
his Government ; without for a moment neglecting the duties of his difficult position, 
we have seen the North American minister follow attentively the palpitations of 
public opinion, study to the bottom the aims and purposes of the Government, trans- 
mit faithfully to his own the result of his investigations, and when he became cog- 
nizant of the prudent and dignified terms of the note of state, he telegraphed again 
and again, giving extracts from that document, in order that his Government might 
not allow itself to be influenced by equivocal impressions. 

These telegrams, joined to those which the active representative of Spain would 
receive and would cause to be known in North American councils; the language of 
the North American press, which had been modified in a notable manner, and the 
inconveniences of provoking a rupture which no solid reasons authorize and which 
would be ill in keeping with the great national solemnity prepared by the United 
States— all these circumstances combined have doubtless influenced the change of 
counsel which we logically expected by reason of the knowledge we possess of the 
springs of politics in the United States. 

All this is good, and it is better to prevent adventures than to rush upon them 
without knowing what their result will be; but the North American men of affairs 
ought to accustom themselves, in their own interest, to follow a more constant pol- 
icy, and not to produce continual inquietudes, the consequences of which touch, 
first of all, their own immense commerce. Let it be left to weak or ambitious gov- 
ernments to cajole and flatter certain passions of the baser sort, and let the United 
States tranquilly follow the evolutions to which they are invited by domestic diffi- 
culties, which it would not cost us much labor to reveal and which demand an effi- 
cient remedy. 

But we have said that the language of the press had become considerably modified, 
and it is incumbent upon us to show it. The task is easy, with the article in the 
New York Herald now before us, and with others which we postpone until to-morrow. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish, 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, December 4, 1875. 
Brief important interview with minister of state. He takes office 
solely in the hope of settlement with us; has carefully read your 266; 
admits our grievances; is opposed in principle to sequestration of prop- 
erty of foreigners; condemns the delays of redress; will take up and 
promptly settle each case; will remove all cause of complaint as to 
treaty ; reprobates conduct of local authorities in Cuba as more injuri- 
ous to Spain than to the United States. 

Gushing. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 703.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, December 5, 1875. 
Sir: I availed myself of the occasion afforded by Mr. Calderon y Col- 
lantes having been appointed proprietary minister of state to call upon 
him yesterday to congratulate him, and at the same time to repeat 



62 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



expressions of hope that the Spanish Government would regard your 
dispatch No. 266 in the light intended, not of a menace, but of a friendly- 
notice of what might be the enforced consequences of the continuance 
of the present state of things in Cuba; and to say further that it was 
our common duty, as it seemed to me, to labor together to remove all 
causes of difference between the two Governments, to do which depended 
primarily on the attitude of the Spanish Government itself in the pres- 
ence of subsisting complications. 

Mr. Calderon y Oollantes replied at once that he concurred with me 
in this view of the subject; that he should not have consented to leave 
the post of minister of grace and justice, which best suited him as a 
lawyer and a magistrate, and to take that of state, which was out of 
the line of his lifetime pursuits, save only in the hope of being able to 
cooperate with me in healing all differences, in order to do which he 
counted much on our long-standing personal friendship and mutual 
confidence; that he had carefully read and considered the contents of 
your No. 266, and must confess that the United States had good reason 
to complain, not only of unjustifiable acts on the part of the local 
authorities of Cuba, but of the delays and half measures of the Spanish 
Government to accord redress ; that the local administration of Cuba, 
civil and military alike, had, in his conception, been greatly injurious 
to the interests of Spain herself, even more than to the United States; 
that, as a jurist, he repudiated on principle the sequestration of the 
property of foreigners in Cuba; that if the Spanish note of the 15th 
ultimo should prove acceptable to the President as a basis, he should 
be prepared to take up each individual grief as presented, and consider 
it with me in good faith as if we were associate judges on the bench, 
and decide it promptly ; that while not able conscientiously to admit 
that by the letter of the treaty civil courts were stipulated for to the 
exclusion of military, yet he was ready so to arrange the ground of 
controversy in that relation as to put an end to all reasonable com- 
plaint in the premises on the part of the United States. 

I could but declare the high gratification it afforded me to receive from 
his lips the communication of these just and elevated sentiments, which 
it would be my pleasure to transmit immediately to my Government. 

You will have received already by telegram a summary report of 
the interview; which, however, does not relieve me of the duty of now 
reporting it in extenso. 
I have, etc., 

0. Gushing. 



Mr, Fish to Mr. Gushing} 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, December 6, 1875. 
Gushing, Minister, Madrid: 

Your 658 2 received this day, on which Congress meets. Note is being 
carefully considered. Its tone is recognized as friendly ; and such is 
that of message, which is ready for transmission. The note of 15th 
suggests no occasion for any alteration. It will be as indicated in my 

Reprinted from House Ex. Doc. No. 90, Forty-fourth Congress, first session, bat 
omissions supplied. 

2 No. 658 is the dispatch inclosing Spanish note, already referred to, containing pro- 
posals for adjustment of pending differences between the United State* and Spain. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 63 

telegram of 27th November — will condemn recognition of independence 
and belligerency in strong terms; will refer to mediation and interven- 
tion by other Powers as a contingent possibility if contest be pro- 
tracted; will intimate readiness to mediate if desired; will in terms 
abstain from present recommendation of intervention. The text is too 
long to telegraph, but no just susceptibility should be excited by its 
purport, statements, or language, which are extremely friendly and 
conciliatory, but firm. 

Fish, Secretary* 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 705.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, December tf, 1875. 

Sir: I received on the afternoon of Saturday the 4th a telegram 
from General Schenck, purporting to be the duplicate of one sent to 
you on the 2d instant. It seems proper, however, that you should see 
a copy of it as deciphered here, and it will accordingly be transmitted, 
but as a separate dispatch. 

Tour dispatch No. 267 instructs me to communicate with Mr. Layard 
on the matter of its contents. I conferred with him fully last evening. 
He is prepared to cooperate with me now, if there should be any occa- 
sion, toward keeping the peace; but my interview with the minister of 
state on the 4th, as reported by telegram of that day, and more fully 
by my No. 703 of yesterday, satisfies me that all is going well on the 
side of the Spanish Government, and that there is no present occasion 
for the friendly interposition of Mr. Layard. He concurs in opinion of 
the inexpediency of taking any further step until the arrival of more 
definite instructions from Lord Derby and yourself. 

Mr. Layard expresses opinion, founded partly on personal observa- 
tion and partly on information received from the British consul-general 
in Havana, that the present is a very unfavorable moment for attempt- 
ing intervention, friendly or other, between Spain and the insurgent 
Cubans. People in Spain are now animated and hopeful as to both 
civil wars, in view of the large reenforcements recently sent to Cuba, of 
the pacification of Valencia and Cataluna, and of the extensive mili- 
tary preparations for moving on the positions of the Vasco-Navarrese. 
Spain needs, he thinks, to be left to try the experiment of the opera- 
tions of this winter. They are not likely to succeed, at least not in 
Cuba; and if interfered with now, she will attribute the failure which 
is to come, not to her own weakness or the strength of the insurgents, 
but to the disturbing action of the United States. But, left to herself, 
and thus failing, she will then feel discouraged in proportion as she now 
feels exalted, and will be in the mood to listen to judicious counsels, 
whether coming from the United States or from Great Britain. 

These remarks of Mr. Layard could not fail to impress me, and so 
much the more, in consonance as they were with the views expressed 
in my No. 636 of the 30th of October. 

The impression which Lord Derby's observations to General Schenck 
make on my mind is that of a disposition on the part of the British 
Government to aid us in a mediatory form rather than as a cooperator 
in the exercise of forcible pressure on Spain. 

Our advance to Great Britain in the present question insures good 
offices at least, and may go further. 

And she might, if she would, powerfully contribute to the solution 



64 AFFAIBS IN CUBA. 

of the slavery question, not only as impelled by the same considerations 
of humanity which actuate the United States, but likewise in virtue of 
treaties under which she may rightfully assert the freedom of nearly 
all the bozal negroes — that is, of half the actual slaves in Cuba. 

It was a bold step on the part of the President, and it seems to me a 
wise one, thus to invite the cooperation of Great Britain. 

It opens a wide perspective. It looks like breaking down the last 
barrier of distrust between the two great branches of the British race 
in Europe and America. 

It would seem that now at length, after the lapse of a century of 
heartburning, the old jealousy of the emancipated colonies toward the 
mother country, and the rancors of the Sovereign toward rebel subjects 
become an independent State, had wholly died out, to give place to 
mutual confidence advantageous to us, but not less so to Great Britain. 

The treaty of Washington was, in fact, not merely a settlement of a 
transitory modern question growing out of our secession war, but 
a clearing up also of long-standing frets dating back to the war of 
Independence. 

I have, etc., 0. Cushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, December 13, 1875. 
Gushing, Minister, Madrid: 

Instruction 266 read to Von Billow at Berlin on 7th, suggesting good 
effect if representations made by Germany of importance of ending- 
contest. He expressed desire of Germany for peace and promised to 
consult Emperor and Prince Bismarck. Bead also in same way to 
Duke Decazes in Paris. He desired to consult English Government. 
Thought Madrid Government too weak to settle question. Have 
instructed representatives at St. Petersburg and Vienna to follow same 
course. 

Fish, Secretary. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 278.] Department of State, 

Washington, December 17, 1875. 

SiK: I inclose herewith, for your information, a copy of an instruc- 
tion under date of the 15th November, 1875, to the ministers of the 
United States at Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Borne, Lisbon, and St. Peters- 
burg, transmitting to them a copy of an instruction to you of the 5th of 
the same month (No. 266) referring to the relations between this Gov- 
ernment and that of Spain. 

I also inclose copies of telegram forwarded to and received from those 
ministers in reference to their proceedings pursuant to such instruc- 
tions up to and including this date. No telegram has been sent to the 
legation at Lisbon, and no directions have been given to Mr. Moran 
since the instruction referred to was addressed to him. 

Beferring to an instruction No. 805, addressed to General Schenck, 
of which a copy was transmitted with my No. 267, 1 also inclose here- 
with copies of all telegrams addressed to him or by him to the Depart- 
ment in reference thereto. 

I am, sir, etc., Hamilton Pish. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 65 

[Inclosures.] 

Mr. Fish to United States ministers at Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Lisbon, antl 
St. Petersburg. 
Mr. Fish to Mr. Schenck, November 19, 1875. 
Same to same, November 29, 1875. 
Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish, November 29, 1875. 
Same to same, November 30, 1875. 
Same to same, December 2, 1875. 
Mr. Fish to Mr. Schenck, December 6, 1875. 
Mr. Fish to Mr. Washburne, December 6, 1875. 
Mr. Fish to Mr. Davis, December 6, 1875. 
Mr. N. Fish to Mr. Fish, December 7, 1875. 
Mr. Hitt to Mr. Fish, December 9, 1875. 
Mr. Marsh to Mr. Fish, December 14, 1875. 
Mr. N. Fish to Mr. Fish, December 15, 1875. 
Mr. Boker to Mr. Fish, December 16, 1875. 
Mr. Stevens to Mr. Fish, December 16, 1875. 



Mr. dishing to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, December 19, 1875. 
Spanish Government hears to-day from Austria of circular addressed 
by you to European Governments, suggesting intervention in Cuba. 
Your 2G6 evidently intended. If I am interrogated on the subject by 
minister of state what answer shall I make? 

Gushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, December 20, 1875. 

Two sixty-six communicated also to Eussia, Italy, and Austria. 
Gortchakoff promised if Emperor consent to make representations to 
Spain toward preservation of good relations, but doubts Russian influ- 
ence. Italy will instruct minister to urge expediency of fulfilling 
duties to the United States, and pacifying Cuba, without specifying 
measures. Austria promises answer this week probably unsatisfac- 
tory. Copy all telegrams and circular instruction mailed 17th. 

Intervention of foreign Powers was neither asked or suggested at 
present, but expression of their views desired to impress on Spain 
necessity of terminating contest, and to avoid necessity of intervention. 
This course adopted in the direction of friendship and of peace and to 
exhaust every effort, and avoid all possible suspicion of selfish, un- 
friendly, or ulterior purposes. You may so reply if interrogated. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 1 

No. 730.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, December 22, 1875. (Received Jan. 17, 1876.) 
Sir: You will doubtless have noticed in the London Times of the 9th 
instant an editorial article of some interest respecting the relations 
between the United States and Spain. 

1 Reprinted from House Ex. Doc. No. 90, 44th Cong., 1st sess 



QQ AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Portions of this article have been translated and published in sev- 
eral of the newspapers of Madrid, with more or less pertinent observa- 
tions. 

I annex translation of the observations of the Cronista, of Madrid (a 
journal in close affinity with the Government), calling your attention 
especially to the concluding paragraph, in which is accepted without 
protest the remarkable phrase of the Times concerning the rule of Spain 
over Cuba, to the effect that "the limits of her power are the limits of 
her right." 

I have the honor, etc., 

0. Oushing. 



[Appendix A.— No. 730.— Translation of editorial article from El Cronista, Madrid, December 20, 1875.] 
THE QUESTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The Times of the 9th instant, referring to the message of General Grant, and aftei 
devoting some little space to the religious question, which is commencing to arise in 
the United States, and threatens to perturb their interior peace, if not with armed 
struggles, at least with those moral comlbats which cause so much injury to civil 
societies, passes on to analyze very especially that portion of the message which 
treats of the Cuban question. 

The English journal qualifies it as the most important part of the message, and 
calls observance to the confession of the President that the rebels do not constitute 
a civil organization which could be recognized as an independent government capa- 
ble of fulfilling international obligations and worthy of being treated as a power; 
from which Grant himself draws the inference that to recognize the insurgents as a 
government would be an act inconsistent with the reality. 

And the Times adds : 

"Any other conclusion would have come strangely indeed from the Chief Magis- 
trate of a nation which was angry with this country for recognizing the belligerency 
of the Southern States, although they had a regular government, a fixed capital, 
agents abroad, a formidable navy, and an elaborately organized army. The Cuban 
insurgents are as yet little better than splinters of revolt." 

The President concludes, and the Times applauds him for it, by saying that it 
would be imprudent, premature, and indefensible as a measure of right to treat the 
rebels as belligerents. 

But at the same time that the English journal notes these satisfactory statements 
it observes that in the next line the President lays it down as his opinion that, the 
indefinite continuance of the war being prejudicial to the subjects of the Eepublic, it 
will be necessary for the Spanish Government to do everything possible to conclude 
it, under penalty of that Republic being obliged to adopt such measures as may be 
deemed necessary. 

And the journal adds : 

"It is exceedingly difficult for English observers to do justice to the claims on 
which President Grant's threats are founded. We are apt to think that they are 
merely a veil for a determination to seize one of the richest islands in the world. 
America has long had her eye on Cuba, and it may not uncharitably be thought that 
she is unwilling to let slip this chance of seizing the prize. But it would be well for 
us to suspend our judgment till we see a specific statement of the injury which the 
Cuban rebellion has inflicted upon the United States. It certainly injures trade, 
and does great harm to many of the President's countrymen. The mischief thus 
done may be insufficient to warrant more than a remonstrance, or it may call for a 
less gentle style of treatment." 

The periodical then goes on to make reflections upon the possibility of Spain's over- 
coming the insurrection, and terminates with these notable words : 

"Were Cuba as near to Cornwall as it is to Florida, we should certainly look more 
sharply to matters of fact than to the niceties of international law. But everything, 
we repeat, depends on those matters of fact. If Spain can suppress the insurrection 
and prevent Cuba from becoming a permanent source of mischief to neighboring 
countries, she has the fullest right to keep it. But she is on her trial, and that trial 
can not be long. When she is made to clearly understand that the tenure of her rule 
over Cuba depends on her ability to make that rule a reality, she will not be slow to 
show what she can do, and the limits of her power will be the limits of her right." 

Thus ends the article, which, from more than one point of view, deserves to attract 
the attention of our Government and serve as a stimulus and a spur to it, in order to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 67 

accelerate on the one hand the final campaign against the Carlists, and on the other 
the preparations for another and likewise decisive campaign in Cuba. 

It is indispensable — it is demanded by our interest and our honor, pledged before 
the civilized world — it is indispensable to make a supreme eifort and triumph, and 
triumph speedily, over both insurrections. Neither of the two has succeeded in 
placing itself in condition to be recognized as a belligerent; both of them are daugh- 
ters of the disconcertedness in which we have lived, of the debility which the prin- 
ciple of authority contracted among us in a lamentable period of political insanity; 
both of them are decaying in proportion as authority regains its place and the nation 
restores itself. 

One effort more and we will end it; and let us at every moment think that, in this 
matter as in many others, it is a melancholy truth that " the limits of our power 
must be the limits of our right." 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 748.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 4, 1876. 

Sib : Becent publications in New York, London, and Paris, passed 
around by the telegraph, are drawing attention to the communications 
made by the United States to European Governments on the subject of 
intervention in Cuba. 

Most, if not all of these publications, will probably have passed under 
your eye. 

I annex, nevertheless, in appendix, several such, which are the sub- 
ject of particular comment at Madrid. 

When questioned in this relation, my answer has been, conformably 
to the tenor of your telegram of the 20th ultimo, that intervention had 
neither been asked nor suggested at present, but oniy expression of 
views desired to impress on Spain the necessity of terminating the 
contest and to avoid necessity of intervention, and in the intention of 
peace and friendship, and to preclude all possible suspicion of selfish 
or unfriendly or ulterior purposes on the part of the United States. 

I think that such is the understanding of the matter in every well- 
disposed quarter, as evidenced by the state of mind of the minister of 
state, as reported in my No. 745 of the 2d instant. 

The concluding sentences of the communication made by the Marquis 
de Molins to Galignani's Messenger, and reproduced to-day in Madrid 
by the Havas Agency, seem intended to imply that some of the 
European Governments at least have interchanged views on the subject, 
and in a sense acceptable to Spain, which may be the substance of 
the information communicated to the Marquis de Molins by the Due 
Decazes. 

In Madrid there is a dispute on the question whether or not the 
Spanish Government has taken any action in the premises. But, as we 
now know, the minister of state is preparing a communication in behalf 
of Spain. 

Speculation is active also as to the ultimate question of what the 
United States will do if left alone by other powers — whether the Pres- 
ident will intervene by force, and if so, whether in armed alliance with 
Spain, or whether in arms against her and in aid of the insurgents, 
which it is assumed would be war. Observation of what is going on 
at the present time in Constantinople respecting Bosnia and Herze- 
govina, and what occurred there formerly in the matter of Greece, leads 
many persons to anticipate the development of a similar series of 
incidents at Madrid as respects Cuba. 

Hence, Count Greppi's "Question d'Orient" is read here with interest, 



68 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

as affording a key to the enigma of coming events, both in Enrope and 
America. 

History, it is said, repeats itself, but unfortunately with such varia- 
tions that we misapply the lesson quite as often as we apply it right- 
fully, as in the case of the rejuvenated old man of the "Si jeunesse 
savait, si vieillesse pouvait," by Sonlie. And all experience on the bench 
and at the bar demonstrate that it is much easier to find precedents 
than it is to adapt them to new facts. 

Meantime, while steering as prudently as possible amid the shoals 
and breakers of these larger questions, I am awaiting patiently the 
instructions which are to govern me in the pending particular nego- 
tiations. 

Apropos of which, a letter, purporting to be addressed from Madrid 
to the New York Herald of the 15th ultimo, puzzles me. Supposing 
that the pretense of interview with Mr. Oanovas del Castillo and Mr. 
Euiz Gomez, two of the Spanish gentlemen plainly alluded to, is ficti- 
tious, yet the fact remains that although the Herald has a correspondent 
here, yet he did not arrive until after the date of this letter ; and no 
American has been here capable of entering so minutely or intelligently 
into the questions at issue. On the other hand, it is not easy to suppose 
(although it is possible) that with the aid of some Spaniard of consid- 
erable political and juridical experience, such as are continually passing 
between Spain and Cuba, the letter may have been got up in New York. 

On the whole, although the letter contains errors of fact and of lan- 
guage which a Spaniard of the instruction of Mr. Euiz Gomez, for 
instance, would not have committed, still the matter of the letter may 
have been prepared here by some Spaniard of intelligence desirous of 
thus making his views known to the people of the United States, and 
sent to New York to be worked into its present shape in the office. 
I have, etc., 

0. CUSHING. 



[Appendix A in No. 748. — Sundry newspaper extracts in relation to the Cuban question and the atti- 
tude of the United States and Spain with respect to foreign powers.] 

(A) From the New York Times, December 16, 1875 : 

"The published report that the United States have submitted proposals to Great 
Britain, France, and Germany, looking to an intervention in the Cuban question, is 
contradicted by the language of the President in his recent annual message. In 
addition, it may positively be asserted that even if this Government should in future 
be inclined to such intervention, it would do so without asking or desiring the coop- 
eration of foreign powers." 

(B) From the London Times, December 30, 1875 : 

LATEST INTELLIGENCE — SPAIN AND THE UNITED STATES. 

[By cable from our American correspondent.] 

"Philadelphia, December 99. 
"The Secretary of State recently addressed a circular to the leading European 
Governments, including Spain, upon Cuban affairs, suggesting mediation or inter- 
vention to restore peace, and asking them if they approved of joining in an inter- 
national effort for this object." 

(C) From the London Times, December 31, 1875: 

"Washington, December SO. 
"The American minister in London has, in the name of this Government, addressed 
himself to the English Government for the purpose of learning its views with 
respect to a collective intervention of the European powers with the object of stop- 
ping the bloodshed in Cuba. The English Government has, however, deferred, giv- 
ing a deiiuite answer at present." 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 69 

(D) From Galignani's Messenger, Paris, December 31, 1875: 

"New York, SOth. 
"The American Government addressed recently to the European Powers, Spain 
included, a circular in which it proposed a mediation or an intervention to restore 
peace in Cuba, and asked them if they would associate in an international proceed- 
ing with that object. On that subject the New York Herald publishes a telegraphic 
message from Vienna stating that all the Powers, comprising England, have given 
their adhesion to the proposal." 

(E) From Galignani's Messenger, Paris, January 1, 1876: 

"We have received the following communication from the Spanish embassy: 
"'The New York Herald, according to a telegram from that city, asserts that the 
Government of the United States had invited the great Powers to join with it in an 
intervention in Cuba, and that they had consented. That news is erroneous from sev- 
eral points of view. * * * The American note which is already several weeks old, 
although it was only read to the European cabinet a fortnight ago, does not propose 
intervention. After having rendered justice to the honorable eii'orts made by Spain 
to put an end to the insurrection, it affirms that she is powerless to master it, and 
exhorts the Powers to make friendly remonstrances to her on the state of things. That 
conclusion has been coolly received by the European Governments, which have post- 
poned all reply to these overtures. The American ministers have not insisted, nor 
even left a copy with the Governments to which they are accredited.' " 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, January 4, 1876, 
Gushing, Minister, Madrid: 

Would inconvenience result from publication of 266 and attendant 
correspondence in case Congress call for it? 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, January 5, 1876. 
I think not, seeing that the Spanish Government already has copy 
of dispatch, and the public generally will consider it in connection 
with the President's friendly message. 

Cushtng-. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 754.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 7, 1876. 
Sir: The ministerial journals continue to publish short paragraphs 
founded on the communication made to Galignani's Messenger by the 
Spanish ambassador at Paris, all belonging to the class which the 
physicians denominate soothing medicines, of which the following, in 
the Correspondencia, may serve as example, namely: 

Various colleagues give account of a note which the Government of the United 
States passed some weeks since to the cabinets of Europe, in which, after doing jus- 
tice to the bona fide efforts of Spain to terminate the insurrection in Cuba, the United 



70 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

States pretends that she is impotent to subdue it, and exhorts other Governments to 
make friendly representations to that of Spain on the subject. 

This vague conclusion has been coldly received by the European Governments, 
which have deferred making reply to the indications of the United States. 

The American ministers have not insisted nor left a copy with the Governments to 
which they are respectfully accredited. 

Such is the truth regarding this incident. 

Our own information is to the same effect. 

Thus for the Oorrespondencia. 

I add that rumors are afloat of a telegram received by the Spanish 
Government from London, purporting that Great Britain is proposing 
to assert her treaty rights to the freedom of the loyal blacks in Cuba. 
I have the honor, etc., 

O. Gushing. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 755.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 8, 1876. 

Sir: The ministerial journals of last evening continue to rejoice over 
the tenor of the communique of the Marquis de Molins, reported in my 
No. 748, of the 4th instant. 

They now publish a variation by way of New York and London, as 
follows : 

The [American] Government admits having sent to the European Powers a circular 
respecting the affairs of Cnba. 

It denies having proposed a confederation of Cuba and Puerto Rico under a Spanish 
governor, but it does not publish the text of the circular. 

All this, pursue the journals in question, is nothing but the document 
so coldly received by the Powers to which it was read by the represen- 
tatives of the United States. 

But, nevertheless, in the very same journals appears the following 
telegraphic item, which seems likely to put a new face on things, namely : 

Berlin, January 7. 

It is positively asserted that the German Government shows itself favorable to the 
American circular relative to Cuba, in consequence of the injuries which the present 
situation of the island involves to the commerce of Germany. 

I hear nothing further as to the alleged intentions of Great Britain. 
I have, etc., 

0. Gushing. 

P. S. — Since the above dispatch was written the London Times has 
come to hand, containing a telegram from Vienna, which is annexed. 
It is confused, illogical, and incorrect, like all such telegraphic reports. 

If "Cuba" is a European question of "incalculable consequences," 
as the telegram asserts, then you had good cause to consult Europe, 
and Europe has good cause to act in the premises. 

It was not in the middle of December, but the 30th of November, 
that the Spanish Government received copy of your No. 266. See my 
No. 692 of the 30th November. But intelligence of No. 266 being com- 
municated to European Powers did come here about the middle of 
December, as reported to you in my telegram on the 19th of December. 

0. C. 
Vienna, January 4. 

Th© cabinet of Madrid learned in the middle of December from a confidential 
quarter the contents of the circular note of the United States Government to the 
European powers relative to Cuba. It thereupon instructed its representatives 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 71 

abroad to explain to the Governments to which they are accredited that the Cuban 
question was one not only of American, but of European, interest. Complications 
betweon America and Spain might have incalculable consequences for Europe. In 
the first place, they would encourage the Carlists to make a prolonged resistance 
and revive the hopes of the Federalist Republicans and Socialists in Spain. The 
Austrian Government received these declarations in a friendly manner, and will not 
reply to the long American dispatch, which was only read to the Austrian minister 
for foreign affairs, and which, moreover, not only repudiates any intention of 
annexing Cuba, but in reality contains no definite conclusion. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

ETo. 759.J Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 10, 1876. 

Sir: I annex translation of an article from the Cronista, a serious 
ministerial paper, containing a very formal semiofficial denial of the 
alleged concurrence of Germany in the suggestion by the United States 
of intervention in Cuba. 

There is report here of the capture of a German vessel charged with 
supplying arms to rebels in the Fiiipinas. Count Hatzfeldt informs me 
that he has no information respecting the affair, but apprehends it will 
be the occasion of unpleasant controversy. 

I annex translation of an article on the subject from a ministerial 
journal of respectability, the Tiempo. 

I have the honor, etc., 0. Cushing. 



[Appendix A, No. 759.— Translation of article from El Cronista of January 8, 1876.] 

A dispatch of the Agencia Fabra from Berlin, which we published yesterday, as 
did our contemporaries, gave newB, which would be grave if* true, that the German 
Government showed itself favorable toward the American circular referring to Cuba, 
because of the damage brought upon German commerce by the condition of the 
island. 

Duly informed, we are able to assert that ihe statement referred to is not true, 
and that the oabinet of Berlin continues to express the greatest sympathies for our 
country. 

The circular of the Government of the United States has not met with a favorable 
reception from any European power. 



[Appendix B, No. 759.— Translation of article from El Tiempo of January 8, 1876.] 

We again call the attention of the Government toward our possessions in the 
Philippine Archipelago. We know that the enemies of Spanish integrity rest not, 
although their affairs in London have recently assumed a bad aspect, and that the 
English Government looks upon them with suspicion. 

Upon that immense network of islands of Oceanica belonging to Spain they have 
fixed their vision. They do not overlook that these offer excellent positions, and 
they will take advantage of every opportunity to snatch some one of the rich pearls 
of so precious a jewel. 

There, more than anywhere, will they direct their efforts, because elsewhere they 
will find immediate opposition from first-class powers. If there be vigilance, more 
than sufficient is Spanish patriotism against all conspiracies, native or foreign; and 
not for a moment do we doubt that there will be such (conspiracies) as is proved by 
the news which gives rise to these lines. 



72 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 286.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 11, 1876. 
Sir, : Keferring to previous correspondence on the Spanish question, 
I now inclose herewith, for your confidential information, a copy of two 
dispatches, numbered 220 and 222, dated, respectively, the 8th and 14th 
December, 1875, upon the subject from Mr. Nicholas Fish, charg6 d' 
affaires ad interim, of the United States at Berlin, Prussia. 
I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 288.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 11, 1876. 

Sir: Eeferring to my No. 266 and to the various telegrams which 
have passed in relation thereto, I have to acknowledge the receipt of 
your Nos. 692, 698, 703, and 705. 

With your 692 you inclose a copy of the remarks made by you to the 
minister of state in your interview of November 30, on presenting a 
copy of No. 266. 

It is perceived that you state that No. 266, dated the 5th November, 
was written before the delivery to you of the Spanish note of Novem- 
ber 15, and "as is to be supposed, without knowledge of the intentions 
of the Government of His Majesty." In this you are quite correct, as 
No. 266 bore a date anterior to that of the Spanish note, and was pre- 
pared without knowledge of its contents. At the same time, the 
substance of the Spanish note of November 15 had reached this Gov- 
ernment by means of your telegrams of November 16, 18, and 19, prior 
to my telegram to you of the 27th of November, directing the presen- 
tation of the instruction of the 5th of November, and after a careful 
consideration, a conclusion was reached that it raised no occasion for a 
change in the instructions which had been sent. 

At the conclusion of your memorandum read to the minister of state 
you requested a further interview before any definite resolution was 
adopted by the Government of Spain; and in your No. 703 you report 
an interview with him upon December 4, in which incidental reference 
is made to instruction No. 266, and in which he appears to have frankly 
spoken of some of the grievances of which we had complained ; but it 
is not stated whether this is the interview which you had requested 
should be held prior to any decision being reached on the part of the 
Spanish Government. 

In your No. 698 you report an interview with Mr. Layard, and his 
willingness to back you in the matter of Cuba, as soon as some joint 
course of action should be determined on by the two Governments; and 
in your No. 705 you say that while Mr. Layard is prepared to cooperate 
with you if there should be any occasion, "toward keeping the peace," 
your interview with the minister of state upon the 4th had been so sat- 
isfactory that there seemed no present occasion for his friendly inter- 
position, and that he concurred in the opinion as to the inexpediency 
of any further steps, until the arrival of more definite instructions from 
Lord Derby. 

In your interview of December 4, reference to instruction No. 266 
appears to have been confined to our particular griefs, no allusion being 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 73 

made to the general question of the condition of Cuba as distinguished 
therefrom. 

A telegram from General Schenck, dated December 2, says that Lord 
Derby had received a telegram from Mr. Layard stating that you had 
requested no definite action on instruction No. 266, in the expectation 
that the Spanish note might induce the President to modify the views 
in his message, and that therefore Lord Derby hesitated to act. 

I have as yet no written dispatch from General Schenck on the sub- 
ject of his interview with Lord Derby, and am in hopes, when fuller 
information is received, that it will show that Lord Derby misappre- 
hended Mr. Layard as to a request being made by you to the Spanish 
minister that he take no definite action on the communication addressed 
to the Government at Madrid. It would be unfortunate if such impres- 
sion had delayed instructions from London to Mr. Layard, or had 
induced him to postpone the presentation of the views of the British 
cabinet, which General Schenck represented as willing, in the interests 
of humanity and friendship, to cooperate in any way short of putting 
pressure on Spain that promises to bring about a settlement of troubles 
in Cuba. 

General Schenck has not informed the Department as to any late 
interviews with Lord Derby, and information has not reached me 
whether any particular instructions have been sent to Mr. Layard. 
General Schenck's attention has been called thereto. 

As several of the other Governments of Europe are understood to 
have instructed their representatives at Madrid to make representa- 
tions to the Spanish Government, and as it is presumed that some such 
representations may have already been made, it is highly advisable that 
all of these, to be effective, should be as simultaneous as possible. 

Early information was given to the Government of Great Britain con- 
cerning the course which this Government intended to adopt on this 
question, in order to secure the effect of any representations which that 
Government might be inclined to authorize its representative at Mad- 
rid to make, so that the effect and purpose of instruction No. 266, in its 
relation to the general question of the condition of Cuba, should have 
its full force. The President indulges the hope that you wili, by vig- 
orous but prudent and wise insistence, be enabled to secure the position 
which this Government has taken its full force. He looks confidently 
to a friendly and satisfactory termination of all pending questions with 
Spain, including the important one of the termination of the conflict in 
Cuba. 

I am, etc, Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 762.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 11, 1876. 

Sir: Political circles at Madrid continue to occupy themselves with 
the question of intervention in Cuba, interest in which is kept excited 
by the now frequent references to the subject in the journals of Eng- 
land, Germany, and Austria, reproduced by those of Madrid. 

Articles heretofore transmitted to you afford pabulum to persistent 
discussion. 

To-day there is a new crop, founded on articles of the Gazette of 
Cologne and the Press of Vienna. 



74 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

I annex translation of the article of the Press, with comments of the 
Epoca, and shall transmit to-morrow translation of the article of the 
Gazette of Cologne. 

Late news from Cuba by private letters narrates the destruction of 
" Jaquey Grande" and of several ingenios by the insurgents, the cap- 
ture by them of a railway train between Oienfuegos and Villa Clara, 
near to the headquarters of Valmaseda at Las Cruces ; their operations 
in the neighborhood of Sagua, and the extreme distress indenting in 
the departments of Puerto Principe and in Cinco Villas, all of which 
gives much solicitude to the Government. 

I have, etc., C. CuSHiNft. 



[Appendix A, No. 762.— Translation of article from La Bpooa of January 10, 1876.] 

The more important German journals, the semiofficial ones especially, have 
exjjressed the surprise caused to them by the note of the United States Government 
consulting in regard to the opportuneness of an intervention for the sake of reestab- 
lishing peace in Cuba. The Gazette, of Cologne, has published an article well 
worthy of attracting attention, which we shall reproduce to-morrow; and another 
from one of the most authoritative Austrian dailies expresses itself in the following 
no less significant terms : 

"The threats against Spain contained in the articles of the New York press and in 
the last, message of President Grant not having produced any results, the news is 
propogated from New York that the American Government has approached the 
European Powers, including Spain, with intent of sounding them as to their views 
respecting the opportuneness of obtaining, by means of united action, the reestablish- 
ment of peace in the island of Cuba. 

"Should this news be confirmed, it would not be difficult to foresee the reply 
which would be given by the cabinets. 

"Spain, for her part, has nothing to do but to refer to the large reenforcements 
she has lately sent, and to General Jovellar, as an energetic chief and one well 
acquainted with the Island of Cuba, whereby a speedy pacification of the insurrec- 
tion there may be expected. And however much the filibusters and insurgents may 
attempt to sustain it through the organs of the New York press and the declarations 
of President Grant, they can only delay the end." 

We had anticipated the advice of the Austrian journal. We have in Cuba 70,000 
men, excellent soldiers, and 100,000 volunteers, a number more than sufficient to 
suppress the rebellion should it come out from its fastnesses. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 764.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 12, 1876. 
Sir : I transmit hereto annexed a translation of the article of the 
Gazette, of Cologne, respecting intervention in Cuba, referred to in my 
No. 762 of the 11th instant, with remarks of the Epoca thereon, which 
article is assumed here to be an expression of the public opinion of 
Germany on the subject. 

I have, etc., ' O. Cusiiing. 



[Appendix A, No. 764. — Translation of article from the Gazette, of Cologne, from La Epoca, Madrid, 

January 11, 1876.] 

The article from the Cologne Gazette, to which we referred yesterday, an article 
the spirit of which is opposed to any Americo-European intervention in the question 
of Cuba, runs thus : 

"The President of the United States could not have found a more unfavorable 
moment for inviting the European powers to take common measures with the object 
of restoring order in the confused state of things in the Island of Cuba. Our part 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 75 

of the world is at present very much occupied in disentangling itself from another 
analogous question, or at least postponing it for the longest time possible. So long 
as there is a conflagration in our neighbor, Turkey, and the diplomatic fire-engines 
are laboring to put it out, Europe has neither time nor room for giving attention to 
the little lire in the far-off Antilla. But President Ulysses Grant deems it opportune 
to make his voice heard in the diplomatic concert of the world, so that on this side 
of the ocean his existence may not pass into the state of oblivion. For this reason, 
he has caused course to be given to his circular note by his ministry of foreign 
affairs, of wliich the papers have spoken for the last few days, and of which we now 
give a long extract sent to us by our London correspondent." 

(Here follows a long extract from the note in question, which is already known.) 

" The introduction of this note was already known (at least its principal contents) 
by means of the message which President Grant addressed a few weeks ago to the 
Congress assembled for the new session." 

(Here the Gazette inserts that part of the message which speaks of the insurrec- 
tion of Cuba and of the necessity of ending it.) 

"To whomsoever reads these complaints, even superficially, it must occur that 
nothing is needed save to change the proper names to have an exact picture of that 
civil war which devastated the United States a little more than ten years ago. Not 
merely destruction and pillage, but also the contempt of the modern laws of war- 
fare, offered in the Southern States a spectacle as moving as that of to-day in Cuba, 
even though we may be forced to recognize that acts as horrible as those of shooting 
innocent prisoners of war, whose only crime consisted in having taken part in the 
insurrection, may be excused as measures of reprisal on the part of the Northern 
States. 

" Scenes as fearful as those which passed in the prison of Andersonville, in contempt 
of the lightest demands of humanity and under the superior vigilance of Captain 
Wirz, of the Southern States, have had no equal in Cuba. And, in spite of that, the 
United States opposed by every means any European interference in a civil war, and 
not [sic] with full right, as was recognized at least in Germany, where the state of 
things was then judged with more coolness than in France and England. As apart 
from this the statistical data prove conclusively that the commerce of Cuba has 
developed itself in spite of the insurrection, Spain, in rejecting all foreign interfer- 
ence, can simply refer to the precedent set by the United States. 

"In a letter from Madrid of official origin, which one of our Parisian correspond- 
ents recently mentioned, it is said that the insurrection mainly has its focus in 
those interior parts of the island which, by reason of being covered with impene- 
trable woods and morasses, are uninhabitable for Europeans; that it does not pos- 
sess a single town of importance, and that it never has been able to attain the point 
of conducting even a moderately regularized warfare. President Grant has recog- 
nized this fact when he declares in his message that the real facts do not properly 
permit of recognizing the insurgents as possessing the character of belligerents. 

"In our opinion the European powers have still far less motives for intermixing 
in the Cuban disturbances. Much to the contrary. If Europe has an interest in the 
affairs of Spain, it is to avoid all that might lead that country out of the pathway of 
order upon which it now seems to have entered. This question has no more sensitive 
point than Cuba, and the sovereign who, as the result of foreign pressure, might find 
himself forced to dissolve or even weaken the ties which united the colony to the 
mother country, would feel the ground slipping from under his feet. 

"Now then, to shake the throne of Alfonso XII might eventually please the trans- 
Atlantic Republic, but assuredly would not please the states of the Old World. It 
appears, moreover, as if President Grant finds no support in his own country for his 
designs, because it is only too generally suspected that he touches on foreign ques- 
tions and treats largely of them for the purpose of finding himself, in the moments 
of serious complications, as an experienced general, the sole master of the situation. 
He himself seems to have a firmer conviction that he personally is absolutely neces- 
sary, than the people of the United States appear to have. The negative replies he 
will in all probability get from all the foreign cabinets may make mention of the 
present greatly improved situation of the Government of Madrid with respect to 
the Carlist insurrection. There are hopes that the Peninsula will soon be freed from 
the pest of civil war, and then the moment will have come for putting an end, with 
redoubled energies, to the insurrection in Cuba. As Europe has played for so many 
years the part of a tranquil looker-on, she may well wait, in all conscience, a few 
months yet, before taking into consideration the question whether there is room for 
intervening." 

This language, friendly toward Spain and prndent in what relates to the relations 
of Europe with our country, is the more significant as the significance attributed to 
the Gazette of Cologne is great. It should be borne in mind, however, that this arti- 
cle has been republished by the North German Gazette, as though seeking to make 
it appear that these are the opinions of Germany, already officially known by the 



76 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

silence with which was received the note of the Government of the United States, 
which Government, for its part, can not withdraw from the positions set forth in the 
Presidential message. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 771.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 14, 1876. 

Sir: In turning over the leaves of one of the bound, but unindexed, 
volumes of dispatches in the legation, in search of a particular paper, 
my sight fell on a dispatch of Mr. Seward, addressed to the diplomatic 
representatives of the Governments abroad, on the subject of foreign 
intervention in the United States between the Union and the Southern 
Confederates. 

It is a printed circular, dated August 18, 1862. 

This document may not have fallen under your observation; and if 
not, it may be worthy of perusal, as presenting the obvious arguments 
against intervention common on both sides to all questions. 

It is an apt illustration of the rhetorical theorem of commonplaces — 
arguments pro and contra on a question — with which college studies 
rendered us all familiar in the pages of Cicero's Topica. 

There is no instruction in this dispatch to communicate it or its con- 
tents to other Grovernments, and it does not otherwise appear to have 
been communicated to that of Spain. 

But the document acquired general publicity by being communicated 
to Congress annexed to the next annual message of the President 
(Ex. Doc, 1862-63, vol. 1, p. 176), and may, therefore, have become 
known to the Spanish Government. 

The mini ter of state at the time was D. Saturn ino Calderon y Col- 
lantes, in the second administration of General O'Donnell. It was not 
until his third administration that D. Fernando Calderon y Collantes, 
the present minister of state, entered the cabinet as minister of grace 
and justice. 

Whether or not the present ministers have knowledge of this docu- 
ment does not appear. Probably not, for such has been the political 
anarchy and ministerial shiftiness of the recent years in Spain — such 
the wild contention of parties — and so complete the absence of authentic 
history, amid the immense mass of polemical publications and of extrava- 
gant party diatribes, absurdly dignified with the name of history, in the 
presence of which the tragedy of cruel wars and ever-recurring rebel- 
lions and the comedy of transitory quarrels of mere personal ambition 
and partisanship, serve to crowd out of sight all things oi serious 
importance that this document is not likely to be remembered, if it was 
ever within the knowledge of the public men of Spain. 

Thus, while there is no end here of books of literary criticism, romance, 
poetry, and plays, and especially the rubbish of party disquisitions, 
more or less elaborate, which the future historian of the country will 
have to toil through with disgust and shame; all my efforts thus far 
have failed to obtain any, even the most superficial, account of the six 
great acts of the reign of Queen Isabel, namely : the successive mili- 
tary adventures in Borne, in Santo Domingo, in Morocco, in Mexico, on 
the coast of Chile and Peru, and in Cochin-China. 

While, therefore, it is quite improbable that the ministers of to-day 
have any recollection, if they had any knowledge of Mr. Seward's cir- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 77 

cular, yet certain it is that the arguments contained in its second, third, 
and fourth commencing paragraphs and in its four penultimate para- 
graphs, are such as continually meet my eye in the newspapers, and 
my ear in conversation, at Madrid. 

I have, etc., C. Cushing. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 776.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 15, 1876. 

Sir: In continuation of noticeable articles concerning Cuba, please 
find annexed translation of two short editorials of the Oronista and the 
Epoca, both ministerial journals, the former commenting on language 
attributed to the President. 

The Politica prints in translation an article of the New York Herald 
of the 28th ultimo, purporting to report an interview of its correspond- 
ent with yourself, and makes prefatory and concluding comments 
thereon, which are also annexed in translation. 

I have, etc., 0. Gushing. 

P. S. — Permit me to call your attention to an editorial on Spain, with 
incidental reference to intervention in Cuba, of the London Times of 
the 10th instant. 



[Appendix A, No. 776.— Translation— Editorial paragraph from LaEpooa, Madrid, January 14, 1876.] 

The effort continues to cause the belief that the relations between Spain and the 
United States are not good, when the exact opposite is the case. 

A telegram has gone the rounds announcing that in the roads of Port Royal, S. C, 
the American squadron would be concentrated, but it needs one to be denuded of all 
political common sense to suppose that when the Exposition is in full blast, conflicts 
are to be provoked, and as the desire of the North Americans is to have the Cuban 
war ended, we trust to be able to satisfy their desires shortly, if, indeed, the name 
of a war can be applied to the rebellion, sustained in the shelter of the impenetrable 
woods, without having mastered a single important town and without having organ- 
ized a government. 

The only thing we know for certain is that the religion of the insurgents is idola- 
try, which must be very gratifying for the traitors, who, in order to escape merited 
chastisement, go to swell the ranks of the rebels. 



[Appendix B, No. 776.— Translation .—Editorial article on Cuba, from El Cronlsta, Madrid, January 

14, 1876.] 

The right which is on the side of Spain in the affairs of Cuba is so clear and so 
patent that it could not fail to have been recognized, even though shamefacedly and 
in private circles, by the President of the United States, General Grant. We were 
right in asserting, as we have repeatedly done, that the parliamentary curvets 
(excarcaos) of the Government of the American Republic with respect to the ques- 
tion of Cuba obeyed, rather than its own opinions, electoral machinations, and the 
pressure of the filibuster element, so numerous in the United States. 

We say this a propos of an important piece of news which we receive to-day by 
the Cuban mail. A Habana paper publishes correspondence from New York, in 
which it is positively said that the President of the United States has declared in pri- 
vate circles that he considers the independence of the Island of Cuba as impossible, 
and that its annexation to the United States would cause immense injuries to the 
country. 

If General Grant has said so, he has spoken like a book, even though he has 
required some seven years to convince himself of that which was seen »nd said from 
the beginniug by those who well knew the especial circumstances of the Great 
Antilla. 



78 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Perfectly do we agree with the President of the United States that the Island of 
Cuba can not be independent, because it does not possess the indispensable elements 
to constitute a state capable of governing itself in peace, with preservation of even 
a portion of the culture and prosperity it has acquired under the Spanish flag ; and 
the reasons which he alleges for pronouncing against its annexation appear to us to 
be very well founded. 

All this is logical and natural; but as the Eco de Cuba very rightfully remarks, 
President Grant has not duly considered the deduction he draws, that "a friendly 
intervention is the only thing which can restore peace in the island, obtaining from 
the mother country the concession of autonomy under the protectorate of Spain." 

The Island of Cuba not being able to govern itself well as an independent and 
sovereign State could still less do so as an autonomic semi-State, and in such cir- 
cumstances it were in every way impossible for Spain to reserve to herself a pro- 
tectorate which, without positive benefit to Cuba, would drag the mother country 
into the most serious complications within and without this territory. 

To prove this absolute impossibility so many considerations throng to the subject 
that it is no small task to select the prominent ones. 

In the Island of Cuba there exists an immense majority which does not desire 
separation, which does not desire annexation, which does not desire autonomy, which 
wishes to keep on in the same conditions as those in which they have lived with 
respect to the mother country. In the Island of Cuba there exists a slender minority 
which is split up into "independents." " annexationists," and " autonomists." The 
immense majority reject autonomy, which would weaken their ties with the mother 
country. The independents and the annexationists are not content with autonomy, 
which does not satisfy their aspirations. The autonomists would be the only ones 
left satisfied, but they are so few in number that they would lack moral and material 
strength. 

The Eco de Cuba, then, is right : the Great Antilla is not fitted to be anything save 
what it has been hitherto. Thus it is that the right of Spain is supported by every 
kind of reason based on expedience. Therefore, in spite of all the efforts of the 
ambitious ojalateros (sans culottes) of New York, and in spite of the misdeeds of 
the criminals of the manigua, the Island of Cuba will continue to be a Spanish 
province. 



[Appendix C in No. 776. — Translation.— Extracts from an editorial article from La Politica, Madrid, 

January 14, 1876.] 

In the New York Herald of the 28th (ultimo) we find a conversation which took 
place between a reporter of that paper and the Secretary of State, Mr. Fish. That 
conversation demonstrates to what extent the news published by the North American 
press concerning complications between the United States and Spain are fantastical 
and of pure caprice. Our readers will also thereby see confirmed the opinion which 
we have always expressed, that the relations between the two Governments maintain 
themselves on a cordial and friendly footing. 

This is what the Herald relates : 

"As the press and public men on this side of the water, in Spain, and out of Spain 
are given to discoursing of combats, conflicts, and disasters growing out of the Cuban 
question, we hope that the positive language of the North American Minister of State 
will serve to calm impressionable minds and restore the truth of the facts." 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 777.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 16, 1876. 

Sir : I called on the minister of state yesterday, in conformity with 
previous request of his, to relieve his solicitude regarding the non- 
arrival of your instruction on the subject of his note of the 15th of 
November. 

I told him that my dispatch, covering that note, only reached you on 
the 6th of December ; that my last dates from you were on the 22d of 
December; that no more time had elapsed than might naturally be 
required for the due consideration of the points of detail involved ; and 
that therefore there was no delay to give cause of solicitude. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 79 

He said it had occurred to him that you might have concluded not to 
act until after hearing from the European Governments whose opinion 
you had asked in the matter; and that in this view he had resolved to 
defer writing the contemplated responsive circular of Spain to those 
Governments until after hearing from you, as he was anxious to avoid 
saying or doing anything which might infer offense to the United States. 

I expressed gratification at his taking this view of the subject, and 
said that his conjecture might be correct, but that I had no information 
on which either to contradict or confirm it. 

He then proceeded to say that he wished you were seated by his side, 
as I was, that he might say to you in the unreserve of friendship and 
outside of diplomatic forms that the United States could desire nothing 
in the sense of peace, good government, or liberty in Cuba which the 
Government of Don Alfonso does not desire still more earnestly; that 
his Government freely admitted the political expediency and necessity 
of abandoning the old colonial system and of promptly consummating 
tbe emancipation of the slaves; that the predatory bands of runaway 
blacks, headed by foreigners from Dominica and Venezuela, engaged in 
the work of incendiarism and devastation, in face of which all the social 
forces of the island were devoted to self-defense, were the only obstacle 
to the introduction of radical reforms in Cuba ; that if the slaves were 
now emancipated at once many of them would betake themselves to the 
mountains as maroons and become additional agents of disorder and 
bloodshed; that he did not admit as possible the idea that the Presi- 
dent contemplates acts of naval or military hostility on the side of those 
incendiary bands iu order to obstruct or possibly defeat the efforts of 
Spain to restore order, to do which would of course be simply the com- 
mencement of war of aggression against Spain ; and that if it were in 
his power to speak to you directly he would embrace the privilege to 
beg you to tell him explicitly — as a friend, if you would permit, and if 
not, as a statesman and a man of honor — what is the precise thing 
which you would advise or wish Spain to do under the mediation of the 
United States, with the assurance that if the thing proposed were just 
and practicable — and he could not conceive that you would propose 
anything unjust or impracticable — Spain would be but too glad to do it, 
as well in her own interest as in good will toward the United States, 
and in the consciousness that the United States and Spain are by com- 
mercial ties inseparably associated in the question of the tranquillity 
and prosperity of Cuba. 

I confess these remarks of Mr. Calderon y Collantes made an impres 
sion on my mind which he may or may not have intended, but which, 
nevertheless, seems to me to be the inner thought behind the words 
uttered, namely : 

If what the United States contemplates is, whether by the use of their 
naval squadron or by landing troops, to intervene by force to prevent 
Spain from subduing the insurrection in Cuba, that is war, and Spain 
must, of necessity, fight, at whatever cost and ultimate loss, or cease to 
hold up her head as an independent nation either in Europe or America. 

But if the view of the United States is to act by mediation in behalf 
of the insurgents, to induce them to lay down their arms, to make accept- 
able terms for them, to secure the execution of these terms, to provide 
for the introduction of good government and the abolition of slavery 
in officious concert or in formal treaty with Spain, then Spain is ready 
to meet the United States halfway in such action, to receive, and even 
invite, their interposition in the affairs of Cuba. 

The impression on my mind to this effect was so strong as to half tempt 



80 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

me to say, Will you then accept our mediation? But I restrained 
myself, in the doubt whether my present instructions would justify me 
in thus committing the United States. 

I limited myself, therefore, to thanking him cordially for the frank- 
ness and friendliness which seemed to inspire what he said, and to assure 
him that I would lose no time in communicating the same to you, as 
nearly as possible in his own words, and regretting that no mere writ- 
ten report could do justice to the impressiveness of oral representation. 

He then referred briefly to the mere robber character of what there 
is now of insurrection in Cuba, composed of scattered parties of negroes 
and mulattoes, without the slightest pretension to any government — 
directed, so far as they had any general direction, by foreigners, mere 
desperado adventurers, without right or stake in the country [I inter- 
rupted him here to say there were no citizens of the United States among 
them, to which he assented, and then continued], engaged in mere plun- 
der and incendiarism, not in war — the worst form of that tendency to 
guerrilla hostilities in the place of regular warfare which the Spaniards 
had inherited from their remote Celtiberian progenitors, and which, if 
one of the glories, was not the less one of the national calamities, of 
Spain. 

But of all this, he said, the President's message showed that we in 
the United States had a clear conception; and he added that neither 
such bad foreigners as Maximo Gomez in the Managua, nor worse Span- 
iards, like Miguel Aldama in New York, could ever make of Cuba any 
better republic than Haiti; and that appeared to be their only pur- 
pose — to ruin where they could not rule. 

It was impossible for me conscientiously to contradict these appreci- 
ations, and therefore I could but listen attentively, and, when he 
had concluded, take leave, assuring him that he would be informed at 
once when my expected instructions should arrive from Washington. 

The concluding remarks of Mr. Calderon y Collantes suggest to me 
some considerations, which you will permit me to subjoin by way of 
commentary. 

The Spaniards have great qualities, as many a page in their history 
demonstrates, but they have also the defects of those qualities; and. 
my dispatches have not been sparing in the exhibition of those defects, 
such as intolerance of opinion, exaggerated individualism, ill-regulated 
ambitions, disposition to pronunciamentos, insurrection, civil war, and 
especially guerrilla warfare. 

The Spanish emigrants to America carried all their national qualities 
and defects with them, as did our own English, Scottish, Irish, and 
Dutch ancestors; and hence the difference between the colonial career 
and the political position of British America and those of Spanish 
America. 

And of all Spanish America that which has presented the least bal- 
ance of good condition is Cuba. 

It is curious to read in the ample history of Cuba by Pezuela how 
at the outset the island was plagued with swarms of mere adventurers 
in the vain search after gold, the best of whom followed Cortez to 
Mexico, leaving the worst behind ; how it was that in Cuba, as in Santo 
Domingo, by these adventurers the aboriginal inhabitants were exter- 
minated, while in the rest of Spanish America these have increased in 
numbers ; how for several generations afterwards the most profitable 
occupation of the settlers was contraband trade, with all its corrupting 
effects; how the colonial administration presented the spectacle of 
a chronic three- sided quarrel between the military, the civil, and the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 81 

judicial authorities; how. when the insurrection in French Santo 
Domingo put an end to the cultivation of sugar and coffee there, that 
cultivation passed to Cuba; how it flourished there, with the conse- 
quent development of slavery and the slave trade; how overflowing 
wealth ensued, and with it came ill-directed education, unwholesome 
ambitions, and traitorous plots of annexation to the United States, not 
for the promotion of liberty, but for the security of slavery; how there- 
upon and therefore came acts and measures of angry repression on the 
part of Spain, culminating in the present state of hostility between the 
peninsular Spaniards and the Cuban Spaniards. 

If the Cuban emigrants in the United States are a proper sample, as 
they possibly may be, of the better Cuban Spaniards, what are we to 
think of those of average or inferior degree 1 ? 

While those emigrants have made themselves ridiculous in spending 
their time in quarreling with one another in the newspapers and in 
public meetings, instead of fighting the common enemy in the field, 
they have rendered themselves odious by their systematic violation of 
the law of the land of their asylum, and the acts of fraud and perjury 
which that implies, and by their frantic hostility to the Government of 
the United States. 

Meanwhile, we see what the insurgents at home are after six years' 
experience — incapable, as the President so clearly shows, of independ- 
ence, unworthy even of the concession of belligerence. 

If the emigrants in the United States were now in Cuba, if the insur- 
gents in arms were to lay down their arms, could they and the rich sugar 
planters and merchants of the seaports and of the western part of the 
island, with or without anterior solution of the slavery question, live in 
peace together as a republic based on free popular suffrage, which is 
the only intelligible conception of a republic? To me it seems impos- 
sible. To say nothing of Santo Domingo, we may look to the case of 
Jamaica, where, without any civil war to embitter men against one 
another, with generously regulated emancipation, with a colonial policy 
just, nay amicable and even kind, it has been found impossible to main- 
tain the existence of well-ordered society except by the constant exer- 
cise of paternal authority on the part of the metropolis. 

All which leads me to the conclusion that the United States would 
have an immense task on their hands in undertaking the pacification 
of Cuba alone and by hostile force, inferring the necessity not only of 
a fleet and an army of operations, but also of occupation to keep the 
peace, but might well contribute efficiently to the result in cooperation 
with Spain. 

I have the honor, etc., 0. Cushing. 



Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish, 

No. 770.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 17, 1876. 
Sir: The observations imputed to the President and yourself, as 
reported in my No. 776 of the 15th inst., continue to be the subject of a 
dropping fire of commentary in the public journals of Madrid, the most 
notable of which is annexed from the Epoca. 

I have the honor to be, etc., 0. Gushing. 

6 



82 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

[Appendix A, No. 779. — Translation. — Article from La Epoca of January 15, 1876.] 

The New York Herald of the 28th attributes to the Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, 
the following words upon the relations between Spain and the United States: 

"There is not a word of truth in the stories relative to difficulties between the 
United States and Spain; the two countries maintain the best relations, and the 
slight difficulty originated by the reclamations in Cuba is on the best road toward 
amicable settlement." 

The opinion is also attributed to the President that he considers the independence 
of the Island of Cuba impossible, and that its annexation to the United States would 
cause great harm to the country. 

We are of the same opinion. The Island of Cuba, independent, would be worth 
no more than Haiti or Santo Domingo, and its rich products would cease to sustain 
the market of the United States. Mr. Grant is mistaken, for the adventurers in the 
manigua no longer obey political ideas of any kind, nor would they accept any form 
of government save that which exempts them from the penalties which they have 
merited by the ordinary crimes which led them to mingle in the forces of the rebel- 
lion. And as an autonomic state the Island of Cuba can not sustain itself, since 
should it cease to belong to Spain it would become the patrimony of the negro race. 
But as no one desires this, the Government of the United States will do better by 
allowing us to conquer the insurrection, as we shall finally overcome it, raising the 
production of the Island of Cuba to amounts never before known and instituting 
there the reforms which may be compatible with justice. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. GusJiing. 

No. 298.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 19, 1876. 
Sir : Beferring to previous correspondence on the Spanish question, 
I now inclose herewith, for your information, a copy of a dispatch under 
date of the 18th instant (No. 36) 1 upon the subject from Mr. Boker, the 
minister of the United States at St. Petersburg. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

So. 299.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 21, 1876. 
Sir : Eeferring to my No. 298 of the 19th instant, transmitting a copy 
of a dispatch on the Spauish question from Mr. Boker, the minister of 
the United States at St. Petersburg, I have now to inclose herewith for 
your further information a copy of another dispatch under date of the 
23d ultimo from that gentleman, stating that the Eussian Government 
has consented to make representations to that of Spain upon the ques- 
tion, and that the Eussian minister at Madrid has been instructed 
accordingly. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 786.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 21, 1876. 

Sir : I continue to make for your information such extracts from 
newspapers as appear to me most worthy of attention. 

(1) I remark, first, that whatever inconvenience may be involved in 
communicating the correspondence to Congress will be fully compen- 

i See p. 132. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 83 

sated by putting an end to the false rumors which fill the newspapers 
and lead to misconstruction both in the United States and Europe. 

(2) The report of a late interview with the minister of state will 
have served to show you how accessible this Government is to good 
influences on the part of the United States. 

If we make ourselves the instrument, morally or by force, either of 
the maroon incendiaries in Cuba or of the false Cubans, who, instead 
of staying at home and taking up arms for their pretended country, run 
away from it to parade their desertion and their shame in New York, 
we shall, in my opinion, encounter serious trouble, while otherwise we 
shall have our own way in all things. 

(3) I was impatient at first in view of the nonarrival of ultimate 
instructions, but have now become reconciled to this in the suppo- 
sition that before acting definitely you will have desired to feel the 
pulse not only of the European Governments, but also of Congress. 

(4) Don Alfonso's Government will be all-powerful in the Cortes, 
which is to assemble on the 15th of February; but that circumstance 
will not, in my opinion, produce any change of policy as regards the 
United States. 

Indeed, the stronger the Government in the Cortes, the better for us; 
for according to constant experience in Spain, in every previous Cortes, 
while the Government has been disposed to calmness aud conciliation, 
the opposition breaks out but too frequently into transports of hostility 
against the United States. 

(5) Some of the French and German newspapers, you will see, misled 
by those of the United States, attribute the policy of our Government 
to electoral purposes; while the Spaniards, more candid or more keen- 
sighted, think they find the key to it in the interested clamors of the 
filibuster party in and out of Congress. 

(6) At the same time, in spite of excitations to the contrary, the 
respectable journals of Madrid are constant in the expression of belief 
in the peaceful and just professions of the President and the Govern- 
ment of the United States. 

I have, etc., C. Cushing. 



[Appendix A, No. 786.— Translation.— Editorial article from La Epoca, Madrid, January 19, 1876.] 

The New York papers lately received publish extracts from several journals of 
Madrid which have commented upon the message of General Grant, manifesting 
their surprise that these should attribute to him a spirit of hostility against Spain 
which, in their judgment, he is very far from holding. The desire of the first magis- 
trate of the great American Eepublic and of his Cabinet is, on the contrary, to main- 
tain the cordial relations which happily exist between the two peoples, avoidiug 
■whatever difficulties might compromise those relations for the future. In Madrid, say 
the New York journals, the signification of the message has not been well understood, 
forits general tone is conciliatory and friendly. 

In this sense we ourselves construed it on examination, and the facts have since 
come to show the exactness of our appreciations. President Grant has to satisfy the 
exigencies of a certain group, not very numerous, but excitable in the extreme, 
which sympathizes with the Cuban insurgents, and whose opposition might run 
counter to his aspirations to the third Presidency of the Eepublic; and, neverthe- 
less, on examining that document with due attention, not a single phrase of encour- 
agement for them can be found in it. The hopes of obtaining the declaration of 
belligerence in favor of the rebels of the Managua are completely dispelled; there is 
nothing in the message which can be construed as a menace nor inspire fears of the 
most remote danger, and the idea of European intervention in the affairs of Cuba, 
vaguely formulated, has had no other object than to silence to a certain extent the 
exigencies we have mentioned, without the Government of Washington showing 
much zeal in sustaining the idea. Such a project may be regarded as a failure. It 
is so, assuredly, after receiving from the Governments of Europe communications 



84 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

wherein they refer to it with marked indifference and do not show themselves dis- 
posed to second it. 

The change of attitude which is observable in the North American press reveals 
the tendency which dominates in the country, openly contrary, not merely to war, 
but to any solution which would make of independent Cuba a new Santo Domingo. 
It is very well known there that upon the separation of the Great Antilla from the 
mother country, it would fall under the brutal dominion of that crowd of bandits 
and incendiaries who mark their raids by leaving behind them heaps of ruins; and 
the United States, which keep up such important mercantile transactions with that 
Spanish province, would be the first to suffer the evil consequences of the separa- 
tion. The interest of commerce, which prevails in all the acts of the American 
Government, demands that Cuba should be what it was before the present destructive 
insurrection, and that its wealth, which has been such a source of profit to the Great 
Eepublic, should increase. This can not be obtained without restoring tranquillity 
under the shadow of the Spanish flag, and it will be obtained, cost what it may, by 
the patriotic effort of the whole nation, resolved to maintain its integrity and regain 
its greatness. 

Thus, doubtless, is the matter understood by the North American Government and 
people, whose attitude is day by day more strongly marked in favor of our country. 
The communications of the minister of foreign affairs in Washington, and the 
friendly spirit which reigns in the conferences of his representatives in Madrid, remove 
all fear of future complications, which can only have existed in the imagination of 
the laborantes and their sympathizers. 



[Appendix B, No. 786.— Translation.— Editorial paragraph from La Epooa, Madrid, Jan nary 20, 1876 

We are informed from Paris, on the loth, that the correspondence from New York 
in the English and German press is occupied with the American note addressed to 
the Powers concerning the question of Cuba. 

All are unanimous in roundly denying that the United States entertains any inten- 
tion, even remote, of intervening directly in Cuba. 

The correspondent of the Times supposes that the note has for its cause the impa- 
tience to which the prolongation of a struggle which causes serious injuries to com- 
merce gives rise in the United States. 

The correspondent of the Frankfort Gazette asserts that the American Chambers 
will in no case give their approbation to an intervention in Cuba, and conjectures 
that nothing more than a fresh maneuver of the Grant party is to be seen in this note. 

The Paris Journal sums up these comments in a paragraph of its bulletin, deduct- 
ing as a consequence that the note is contrary to all diplomatic traditions of the 
Union, since it consults the powers about a question which only interests Spain, 
Mexico, and England. It adds that the only thing to be seen in it is an attempt on 
the part of Grant to make profit of this question in favor of his third reelection. 

We have already said yesterday that our own news was entirely tranquilizing ; 
that in the Cabinet of the United States the best disposition prevails, and that to 
this result have contributed the loyal, and at the same time dignified explanations 
of our Government, as well as the knowledge that the commerce of the United States 
has much more to gain under the possession of Cuba by Spain than by means of 
reckless schemes otherwise arising. To such a point does one of our friends in New 
York carry his assurances that, in a recent letter, he announced to us the possibility 
that the American Cabinet itself would take upon itself the responsibility of guar- 
anteeing to Spain the possession of her Antillas, joining to this new commercial ties. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 301.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 25, 1876. 

Sir : The German minister, Mr. Schlozer, called to-day, and I give 
the substance of the conversation which took place between him and 
myself. 

He said that he was instructed by the minister of foreign affairs to 
express thanks for the friendly communication which was made to the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 85 

German Government of the instruction to Mr. Cushing, referring to 
that of November 5, 1875, No. 266, and to state that they feel the justice 
of our complaint and appreciate the moderation of our conduct; that 
German interests suffer in the interruption of commerce resulting from 
the condition of affairs in Cuba, and that her citizens have also sus- 
tained wrongs, but that she does not feel disposed at present to take 
any decided steps. 

I remarked that Mr. von Biilow had given our charge" d'affaires to 
understand that their minister in Madrid would be instructed to repre- 
sent to the Spanish Government that in the opinion of Germany the 
United States was justified in her complaint and in the wish for an 
early termination of the conflict in Cuba. 

Mr. Sohlozer's reply was equivocal. He answered: " Oh, yes; but 
you know in these matters the Governments of Europe like to act in 
concert." 

I answered that this was the object which induced us to communicate 
with the great powers simultaneously, believing that they would feel, 
as we understood Mr. von Biilow to have expressed himself, the fairness 
of our position, and believing that a simultaneous expression to that 
effect could not fail to exercise a powerful influence in inducing Spain 
to appreciate the necessity of bringing to a termination a war which had 
lasted for more than seven years, without any apparent approach to a 
result, and which was now threatening the destruction of the producing 
capacity of the island. 

He inquired whether I could tell him the course which Great Britain 
proposed to take. 

I answered that I supposed that Great Britain would communicate 
with Germany if she wished to know the views she had of the matter; 
that I did not undertake to express them for her, but I believed that 
she recognized the justice and moderation of our position, and the 
importance of an early termination of the conflict. 

I called attention to the fact that we neither sought nor desired any 
physical force or pressure, but simply the moral influence of concur- 
rence of opinion as to the protraction of the contest. 

He assured me his Government agreed with us, but I could obtain 
from him no intimation that it was intended to inform Spain that such 
was the fact. 

As this seems to place Germany in a different attitude from that 
indicated in Mr. von Billow's conversation with Mr. Fish (as communi- 
cated to you in my No. 286), it seems proper to make known to you the 
substance of the interview. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 794.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 28, 1876. 

Sir : I annex four or five items which appear in the Correspondencia, 
numbered 1 to 4. 

I am not sure what the exact meaning is of Nos. 1 and 2, but trans- 
mit them as they stand. 

I have, etc., O. Cushing. 



86 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

[Appendix A, No. 794.— Translation.— Sundry items from La Correspondence.] 

No. 1. 

A telegram from Washington was received last night at the ministry of state deny- 
ing that the note had been addressed to the Spanish Government, of which the news- 
papers have spoken, and which was supposed to have been communicated to the 
other European powers. 

No. 2. 

[Telegram.] 

Vienna, January 26. 
The ministry of state has asked confidentially of the American minister at this 
court a copy of Mr. Fish's circular referring to the affairs of Cuba. The representa- 
tive of the United States, after reflection, has refused, for which reason it is believed 
possible, later on, that a new American note will be presented. 

No. 3. 

From January 1, 1875, up to January 21, 1876, there have been embarked for the 
army of the island of Cuba 28,445 soldiers in 43 expeditions. This cipher proves all 
we have said on different occasions with respect to the zeal and activity displayed by 
the respective departments of the ministry of war, in order to endow the army of 
Cuba with the forces needed to put down the insurrection. 

No. 5. 

The Times of the 24th instant, referring to the note of the American minister, Mr. 
Fish, says: 

" We are sure that Lord Derby and the ministers of the other powers, will reply 
courteously to the invitation of Mr. Fish ; but the question of knowing whether we 
ought to intervene between Spain and her rebellious colony is much less evident. 
It is not probable we shall do more than give a simple counsel, in case we go so far 
as to give any, unless it be that our honor and our interests would suffer; for the 
complaints which have any real foundation are the business of Spain alone. 

"Nevertheless, it is possible that the powers may take part in a convention, which, 
guarding the honor of Spain, shall terminate the question of Cuba." 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 799.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, January 31, 1876. 

Sir: In continuance of the purpose of transmitting to you from time 
to time newspaper paragraphs indicative of public opinion respecting, 
especially, the question of intervention, translation is annexed of an 
article of La Patria, which is supposed to express views of the minister 
of gobernacion, Mr. Eomero y Eobledo, lately married to a daughter of 
D. Julian Zulueta. 

The journals of Madrid abound with discussions of the supposed elec- 
toral prominence of the religious question in the United States. 

Several of them also are occupied with examination of the condition 
and fortunes of our Indians, with appreciations to our prejudice, drawn 
from the book of Mr. Pumpelly. 

I have, etc., 0. Gushing. 



[Appendix A, No. 799.— Translation.- Extract from La Patria of January 29, 1876.] 

The English journal (the Times) doubts whether its Government will go so far as 
to interfere in our affairs in the way the Cabinet of Washington seeks, but at the 
same time it says that the powers may aid in forming a compromise which may save 
the honor of Spain while terminating the Cuban question. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 87 

This, after all, is no other than a friendly intervention, which reveals the good 
spirit wherewith the English people is animated with respect to Spain, but we do 
not know to what extent onr Government would conform to the intervention of the 
powers, provoked by that of Washington, in order to bring about the settlement of 
the affairs of our country in Cuba — a settlement which pertains solely and exclu- 
sively to ourselves. 

At any rate, it is needful that the exaggerated pretensions of the North Americans 
should receive a corrective on the part of our Government, and we doubt not that it 
will receive it, within the bounds of dignity and decorum befitting a nation which, 
in the settlement of affairs which are its own, and exclusively its own, can not per- 
mit interferences founded in strange captiousnesses and in imaginary dangers and 
prejudices. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 804.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, February 5, 1876. 

Sir: I annex, in translation, extracts of a notable editorial article of 
the Politica respecting the present relations of the United States and 
Spain. 

I have, etc., C. Cushing. 



[Appendix A, No. 804.— Extracts translated.— Leading editorial from La Politica, Madrid, February 4, 

1876.J 

AMERICAN AFFAIRS. 

The notices which the transatlantic cable has brought to us with respect to the 
political spirit which reigns in the United States with reference to the question of 
Cuba are too serious to permit of their not being taken up by the Spanish press, the 
duty of which is to watch over and defend our interests on the other side of the ocean. 
The field of politics is a vast chess board, where, from the king to the pawn, not a 
move can be made without affecting in a greater or less degree the situation of all 
the other pieces. Thus it is that the agitation aroused in the United States with 
respect to the political affairs of Cuba, which, it weald seem, ought merely to be 
confined to the United States and to Spain, has taken such a turn that to-day all the 
principal powers of Europe are playing a part in this affair. Can the Spanish press, 
therefore, remain meanwhile indifferent and silent? We think not, 

What is the matter? 

Tbe matter is that the Government of the United States, whose President, Mr. 
Grant, had already announced in bis last message another special one on the Cuban 
policy, has passed to its representatives in Europe a note, to the end that, without 
leaving a copy of it, it may be read to the European ministers of foreign affairs. 
The object of the note has doubtless been to enable the Cabinet of Washington to 
discover indirectly the impression which would be produced by its interference, 
direct or indirect, in the relations of Spain with her Antilleau province; but even 
though this note may have merely been a pilot balloon to get the drift of European 
sentiment it has for that reason none the less attracted the attention of political 
men. 

Wo do not know whether this reserved communication to the European nations 
will receive anything else than a purely polite and diplomatic welcome, but what is 
A r ery probable, in our opinion, is that none of them is disposed to accept an active 
part in an enterprise having for its object to exert upon Spain a pressure which could 
be interpreted as a minatory act. 

We do not doubt that the sensible party of the United States would see with satis- 
faction the termination of the Cuban conflict, out of respect for the laws of humanity; 
hut who better than that same North American Republic could have prevented the 
duration of that sanguiuary war by simply complying with and causing its sub- 
ordinates to comply with the laws which prohibit the sending of resources, arms, and 
munitions to an insurrection born in the bosom of a friendly power? For, if the 
custom-houses of New York, of Charleston, of Savannah, Mobile, and New Orleans, in 
fulfillment of existing laws, had detained the filibuster ships laden with arms and 



88 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

munitions for the insurgents and thus aiding in warfare against a friendly power — if 
they had prevented these violations of international right — then but a brief time would 
have passed before the insurrection, which had its origin on the banks of the Yara, 
had succumbed, without having so much prolonged its existence, or having caused 
such disasters, or having counted so many victims. And, if this be an evident and 
palpable fact, how is it that the United States to-day recall the name of humanity, 
and to what result do the judgments of humanity lead when invoked by the nation 
which might have arrested the career of the evils which it to-day recognizes? 

Nearly eight years have passed by, and the mother country has had not merely to meet 
the serious difficulties which follow in the train of a reckless insurrection, but it has 
also had to sustain a hand-to-hand struggle becaxise of the conflicts excited against 
Spain by permanent elements in the American Union which sympathize with the 
Cuban insurrection. And when all the combustibles have been accumulated for a 
conflagration, and the blaze has been kept knowingly stirred up, it is a rare sight to 
see those who have done all this lamenting the ravages of that Are, shrinking appalled 
from its horrors, and clamoring before Europe for the rights of humanity. 

It is not that we ourselves fail to lament the horrors which, there as elsewhere, are 
involved in civil war. We have valiantly condemned acts which have taken place 
in the island, but of which acts we everywhere find like examples, even in the civil 
war of the United States. We appeal to the families of the Confederate States during 
the titanic contest between the States of the North and of the South of the Ameri- 
can Union to tell us whether we are, or are not, right? 

And if, from the point of view of humanity, we do not recognize that the United 
States have either the right or the opportunity to take the initiative which they have 
taken in the Cuban question, still less could we concede it to them if they appeal to 
the resource of supposing that the Cuban war affects their commerce. The North 
Americans are intelligent men in questions of figures and statistical calculations, 
and they know that the commercial relations between the United States and Cuba 
have increased during these last eight years in spite of the war; and, therefore, the 
excuse that the war affects their commercial interests can not serve for their inter- 
vention. There is no need of our reproducing the statistical data which demonstrate 
the increase of commerce between the Island of Cuba and the United States during 
the Cuban war, because they are data known to all the world, and which will easily 
be found by the North American dailies. 

What remains besides that which has been set forth to serve as a support to the 
United States in order to pretend to the direct or indirect intervention which they 
propose? In our conception, it has for its basis no other thing than the eternal ten- 
dency which, from beginning of the century and from one motive or another, has 
been ever manifested by the partisans of the Monroe doctrine — a policy which served 
to rend from Mexico the greater part of her territory ; a policy which has ever sought 
to deprive Spain of the brightest jewel of her crown, of the jewel which symbolizes 
a world of memories for the nation which discovered America. 

******* 

The notes of Mr. Henry Clay to Mr. Everett in 1825, to the end that Spain should 
conclude the wars of Mexico and Colombia for the sake of humanity; subsequently 
those of Mr. Buchanan to Mr. Saunders, minister in Madrid, for the purchase of 
Cuba for one hundred millions of dollars, recommending him to get it as cheap as 
possible; the mission of Mr. SouhS; the Ostende conference; the refusal of the 
United States to subscribe the compromise with England and France to guarantee 
to Spain the possession of the Island of Cuba, and a thousand other antecedents 
which we might evoke, if the scope of this article permitted us to do so, are the key 
to explain this stroke of humanity with which the United States present themselves 
before Europe, soliciting its moral cooperation to end the war in Cuba. 

The Government must understand it thus, as will Mr. Canovas del Costillo and Mr. 
Calderon y Collantes, both eminent statesmen of Spain, and profoundly acquainted 
with the North American policy, and they will doubtless have presented before the 
courts of Europe the true aspect of the Cuban question ; and we do not entertain 
the least doubt of the support which our Government will receive, sustaining its 
dignity and its rights. 

But, at any rate, what is undoubtedly indispensable as a measure of salvation is 
that this insensate insurrection in Cuba, which gives rise to so many conflicts, be 
terminated as soon as possible. The Carlist war is already dominated, and if the 
30,000 soldiers who have recently crossed the Atlantic be not enough to pacify the 
island let there be speedily sent as many more as may be necessary in order to obtain 
that object, and let the reforms be made which ought to be introduced for the pur- 
pose of bettering the financial state of the island and rendering the operations of 
the campaign more effective. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 89 

Mr. Fish to Mr. dishing. 

No. 311.] Department of State, 

Washington, February 9, 1876. 

Sir: Yonr dispatch No. 779, of the 17th ultimo, has been received. 
It relates to the continued comments of the public journals in reference 
to certain observations on Cuba imputed to the President and Secretary 
of State, and incloses an article from La Epoca in regard thereto. 

In reply I have to state that while the remarks attributed to the 
President and Secretary of State in the article from La Epoca above 
referred to may not be very far from what they might be inclined to 
have said, newspaper reports of interviews or of attributed opinions or 
speeches are not to be relied upon. In this country their general value, 
or rather want of value, is understood. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 828.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, February 14, 1876. 

Sir : In my interview with the minister of state of the 12th, the con- 
versation passed at length naturally to the question of our intervention 
in Cuba. 

I observe, by way of preface, that the intervention of the great 
powers in Turkey is, of course, the subject of universal interest in 
Madrid, the more so as the Spaniards regard it in the light of its analo- 
gies with the suggested possible intervention of the United States in 
the affairs of Cuba. 

I said to Mr. Calderon y Collantes that, approaching, as now, the 
conclusion of the various special questions at issue between the two 
Governments, it might be my duty at an early day to communicate 
with him on the larger and more purely political question of the general 
state of Cuba. 

He replied that he had already addressed to Mr. Mantilla a " memo- 
randum " setting forth the views of the King's Government on the 
subject, in opposition to the suggested intervention, with instructions 
to read the same to you, or, if you desired, to deliver to you a copy; 
that the ministers of Spain at other courts had received copies for the 
purpose of reading the same to the respective Governments, as in the 
case of your note to me of the 5th of November, and that he trusted 
this document would satisfy you of the inconvenience of the idea of 
intervention. 

Parenthetically, let me note that in the newspapers of to-day appears 
a telegram from Paris in the following terms: 

The Spanish memorandum on the subject of Cuba has been received in several 
courts of Europe. Various periodicals give extracts therefrom. It is written skill- 
fully, and has produced an excellent impression. 

Beturning to Mr. Calderon y Collantes, he said there was no difficulty 
on the part of the Spanish Government in the introduction of all prac- 
ticable reforms in the organization or administration of Cuba, includ- 
ing emancipation, which it was resolved to do, with or without any 
friendly suggestion on the part of the United States j that, on the con- 



90 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

trary, the whole difficulty lies with the rebels and the impracticable 
Cuban emigrants in Paris and New York, who obstinately repel even 
the idea of autonomic institutions in Cuba like those of Canada and 
other colonies of Great Britain, and thus leave to Spain no possible 
means of action but force. 

He concluded from these premises that it was not Spain to whom 
pressure needed to be applied in order to put an end to the present 
calamatous state of things, but the rebels in arms and their sym- 
pathizers and pretended directors abroad; that while in the matter of 
Turkey the mediating allies in taking the step of suggesting reforms 
in the administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina admitted the conse- 
quent duty of taking a second step, that of exerting their influence to 
induce the rebels to cease from rebellion, the United States appeared 
to stop at the first step, that of assuming a menacing attitude toward 
Spain. 

I replied that he might rest assured of the truth and sincerity of the 
repeated assurances of my Government, repelling all suggestion of 
hostile purpose, avowing, on the contrary, the most friendly ones, and 
anxious only to see the end of a warfare of desolation and bloodshed 
in a possession contiguous to our shores, and socially and commercially 
in the closest relation with us, so as to render the actual state of things 
intolerable to us, and that the subject would be reverted to by me 
again at an early day in a more deliberate manner. 

I may here observe in passing that the concentration of our ships of 
war at Port Boyal impresses the Spaniards as a menace against Spain. 
They say: We have not made any naval demonstrations in the waters 
of the Antilles; we have done nothing to call for defensive prepara- 
tions on the part of the United States, and we are unable to account 
for these naval preparations of theirs, unless intended for the invasion 
of Cuba in aid of the insurgents, in imitation of the action of Navarino. 

Their suspicions in this respect stand greatly in the way of mere 
friendly diplomatic negotiation in the sense of mediation. 

Now, as to the naked question of intervention or mediation in Cuba, 
the only foreign minister here who speaks to me in a helpful spirit is 
Mr. Layard. We have an appointment for some day this week to con- 
sider and determine how far his instructions enable him to support me; 
in other words, up to what point in this direction the United States 
may count on the support of Great Britain. 

I have no information on this point later than General Schenck's 
report by telegraph of December 2, on the subject of his interview of 
that date with Lord Derby, wherein reservations of moment are made 
by the latter, not only as to the object and aim of intercession, but also 
as to the definite conclusions of the British Government. 

I may remark that we stand in no need of the good offices of other 
Governments in the matter of our private griefs ; on the contrary, my 
colleagues think that in this respect we are more favored than they by 
this Government. 

The critical question is, How far any of them will go with us in the 
direction of intervention, if that be repelled by Spain. 

As to this, it will be in my power to write to you in the course of a 
few days. 

I have, etc., O. Cushino-. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 91 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 315.] Department of State, 

Washington, February 16, 1876. 
Sir: Referring to previous correspondence on the subject, I have 
now to inclose herewith, for your information, an extract of a dispatch 
from General Schenck, at London, a copy of two dispatches from Mr. 
Davis, at Berlin, and of one fiom Mr. Hitt, the charge d'affaires ad 
interim, at Paris, all of which relate to the Spanish question. 
I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 

.Enclosures: Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish, January 28, 1876, No. 862 
(extract) ; Mr. Davis to Mr. Fish, January 22, 1876 (No. 249) ; Same 
to same, January 26, 1876 (No. 254); Mr. Hitt to Mr. Fish, January 23, 
1876, No. 1279. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, February 18, 1876. 
Fish, Secretary, Washington : 

Two more of the three remaining claims settled. 
Question of judicial procedure goes on without controversy. 
I begin to think mediatory arrangements between the two Govern- 
ments by themselves, without aid from others, may not be impossible. 
1 need indication of bases. 

Cushing. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 835.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, February 18, 1876. 

Sir: Mr. Layard has made me acquainted with the negotiations for 
the pacification of Cuba in 1870, undertaken by him at the instance of 
Mr. Moret, in Madrid, and continued in concert with the United States, 
at Washington, on the basis of the submission of the insurgents, eman- 
cipation, radical reforms of colonial administration, and general amnesty, 
with exception of such compromised insurgent chiefs as should elect to 
leave the island in ships of war provided by the United States. 

He seems to think this plan a feasible one in itself, but that neither 
that nor any other project of mediation would be seasonable now, nor 
until the Spanish Government shall have gone through with its present 
experimental winter campaign in Cuba. 

Taking as a point of departure the conclusive exhibition in the Pres- 
ident's message of the present unfitness of the insurgents in Cuba for 
independence, or even for a concession of belligerence, and also the 
explicit disavowal on the part of our Government of any wish or pur- 
pose to acquire Cuba — on these premises, the point, which most labors 
in the minds of the Spaniards, is the question as to the precise form of 
intervention contemplated by the United States. 

In this connection there is much comment on the line of action pur- 
sued by the interveningpowers in the matter of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 



92 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

as being the reverse of that pursued by the same powers in the matter 
of Greece. Seeing that in the latter case the demonstration of force was 
against Turkey and in favor of her rebels; while in the former, it is 
against the rebels and in favor of Turkey, as manifested by the concen- 
tration of Austrian troops in Croatia and of a fleet of the allies off 
Eagnsa, in the avowed purpose of compelling the impenitent and per- 
sistent insurgents to accept the terms of reform arranged at Constanti- 
nople. 

I have, etc., C. Cushing. 

Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

Ko. 841.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, February 19, 1876. 
Sir : I have received from the minister of state a copy of the memo- 
randum addressed by him to the representatives of Spain in other coun- 
tries, including the United States, on the subject of Cuba. 

Copies have also been sent by him to the other foreign ministers in 
Madrid. 

He informs me that Mr. Mantilla has been instructed to deliver to you 
a copy of the memorandum, which relieves me of the necessity of send- 
ing to you the copy in the possession of the legation. 
I have, etc. 

C. Gushing. 

Memorandum by Sr. Ferndo. Calderon y Collantes given by Antonio Mantilla to Mr. Fish, 

Secretary of State. 

Ministry of State, Political Section, 

Madrid, February 3, 1876. 

Most Excellent Sir: The great interest which Spain feels in the suppression of 
the insurrection which broke out years ago in the Island of Cuba renders it the 
imperative duty of Spain to rectify all the errors to which the rebels have undertaken 
to give currency, by rendering perfectly evident, by means of irrecusable facts, the 
real animus of that insurrection to-day, laying aside the consideration of its origin; 
by showing, moreover, what would be the consequences of any settlement of the 
question other than the complete triumph (which will be gained) of Spain over the 
insurgents ; the real effect which that state of things has had and continues to have 
upon the wealth of the island, the commerce of the world, and, finally, the resources 
upon which Spain relies for the complete suppression of the insurrection, as, not- 
withstanding the civil war which has unfortunately raged on its soil for years, and 
the notorious contretemps which have been experienced of late years, and which 
have so greatly weakened the action of the Governments, it has not only succeeded 
in repressing it, but also in constantly diminishing its importance. 

The first cry of insurrection was raised at Yara, an unimportant town situated in 
the eastern department of the island, on the 11th day of October, 1868, immediately 
after the receipt of the news of the revolution begun at Cadiz on the 17th of Septem- 
ber, and consummated at Madrid on the 29th of the same month. The leaders of the 
rebellion availed themselves of the preparations which they had doubtless previously 
made, and of the favorable circumstance that the Government had not more than 
7,500 troops all told on the island at the time, and that, too, for a territory peopled by 
1,400,000 inhabitants, and having an area of 12,000 square miles, including the keys 
and the adjacent islands. The flag of the independence of the island was not raised 
at the outset, much less that of annexation to any other State. The only cries were, 
" Hurrah for Prim ! " that general being there regarded as the leader of the Spanish 
revolution, and " Hurrah for the revolution ! " Thus it was that many joined in the 
insurrection who, while really loving Spain, thought that the ouly object had in view 
was a political change, and, subsequently repenting when they became aware of the 
tendency which the enemies of the country were seeking to give to the movement, 
voluntarily took up arms against it. It may be admitted, however, in examining 
this question with the constant good faith and sincerity with which the Government 
of Her Majesty proposes to treat it in this memorandum, very soon after the out- 
break of the revolution, it assumed a character of opposition to the domination of 
Spain, because such was the purpose of all who obtained controlof the rebel forces 
and who directed their movements as leaders. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 93 

It can not be denied that the movement for secession subsequently carried away a 
part — certainly not the greater or the more important — of the white population of 
the island, especially the unreflecting and rash youth, who, misled by their own 
inexperience, imagined that it was possible to establish an independent and repub- 
lican government in a country in which the African race formed by far the major 
portion of the population, and was still in a state of slavery. This secessionistio 
tendency was disguised under the apparent desire of securing reforms in the govern- 
ment of the island. It soon became apparent, however, that this was only a pre- 
text. Reforms and franchises were granted which have never been excelled or even 
equaled by any nation, and the rights were introduced there which are proclaimed 
by the democracy of both Europe and America, which rights had never been enjoyed 
even by the Spaniards themselves. Far from showing any gratitude for such ample 
and important concessions, the rebels took advantage of them to foment the insur- 
rection, which, far from diminishing, increased in extent and intensity. The struggle 
was still carried on, however, with a certain kind of regularity, and both parties 
respected the property which has since been so barbarously destroyed by the new 
insurgent leaders and soldiers. 

All this is now changed, and of the leaders of the secession movement, Cespedes, 
the Agramontes, Cavada, Donato, Marmol, Castilla, Mola, the Betancourts, the 
Agiieros, Jesus del Sol, Bemheta, Salome" Hernandez, Marcono, Inclan, Goicuria, 
Rosas, and others, all of whom were Cubans, and really opposed to Spain, not one is 
now living. Of those who have succeeded them in the command not a single one ia a 
Cuban. Maximo Gomez, the principal one, and Modesto Diaz, the next in impor- 
tance, are Dominicans; Rulof is a Pole; the person known by the nickname of "el 
Inglesito " is an Englishman ; and the rest, who are now few in number on account of 
the great diniinut ion of the insurgent forces, are adventurers from various countries, 
without antecedents, and having no interest in the island. The same may be said 
of almost all the insurgents. Their forces now consist of negroes, mulattoes, Chi- 
nese, deserters from the battalions which were formed provisionally in Santo 
Domingo during our brief rule there, and a few independent bodies which were 
formed in Spain during the most disorderly period of the revolution, and which 
were largely composed of the most turbulent elements of the country, and it may be 
confidently asserted that there are to-day not more than eight hundred white natives 
of Cuba with arms in their hands in the insurgent ranks. 

The consequence of this radical change in the elements of the insurrection is that 
what could be considered in the beginning as a struggle for independence has now 
assumed a character of ferocity and become a war of races and of devastation, which 
it was not before. Wherever a band of insurgents make their appearance, they steal 
and plunder everything that they can lay their hands on and set fire to the crops and 
buildings. The acts of this kind which have been committed there are all their work ; 
not a single instance can be pointed to in which such a deed has been committed by 
our troops. The reason is that the insurgents carry on a savage warfare, without 
feeling any affection for the soil on which they tread, while our troops defend it as a 
possession of the mother country. It is easy to estimate what would be the conse- 
quences, not only for Spain but for the world at large, of the triumph (which is fortu- 
nately quite impossible) of such an insurrection. If such a triumph were once gained 
through the efforts of the negroes, mulattoes, and adventurers, the power would be 
in their hands; they would establish such a government as their capacity would 
permit, and, far from being the commencement of an era of peace for the island and 
of security for the interests of Europe and America, it would be the utter ruin of 
them all and the end of all civilization. 

It would be a very great error to suppose that the Cuban emigrants in the United 
States, who only send good wishes and. advice to the insurgents, taking good care to 
keep out of harm's way themselves, would be able to constitute a government. 
Those among them who were brave enough to face death on the battlefield have 
almost all either fallen or surrendered ; and in every civil contest the party which 
triumphs through its own efforts, and by shedding its own blood, has a right to the 
chief authority, takes possession of it, and does not give it up to or divide it with 
those who have done nothing. It is evidently therefore to the interests of all 
Europe and America, and even of the white race in Cuba, not to encourage, either 
directly or indirectly, as they might sometimes do, against their own will, the insur- 
rection in Cuba; it is to their interest that the insurrection should result in the 
triumph of Spain, which will be at once the triumph of law and civilization, and 
the only one that can offer solid guarantees to all interests and preserve the regular 
relations which should be maintained by civilized nations with all countries. Any 
other solution would be not only ineffective, but contrary to the true and well-under- 
stood interests of humanity and civilization. Even if the Government of Spain 
could, with a proper regard for its own dignity, enter into any other kind of arrange- 
ment, it would have no one to treat with, for no one could expect it to do so with 
the half-savage negroes and mulattoes, or with the Chinese, Dominicans, deserters, 
and adventurers, who are the only ones who hold the real power of the insurrection. 
The triumph of Spain would soon be followed by the judicious but total abolition 



94 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

of slavery, which still exists in Cuba in spite of the sincere wishes of His Majesty's 
Government; it would insure the administrative reforms which have been offered to 
the island; it would open the door to the representation of the inhabitants in the 
Congress of Deputies ; and finally, it would speedily bring to pass what will in vain 
be sought by other means. 

Guaranties of the sincerity of these assertions, and of the firmness and resolution 
with which Spain would make them good, are to be fouud not only in the measures 
which have already been carried out in Puerto Rico, but also in those which, notwith- 
standing the insurrection, have been adopted for Cuba, by virtue of which more 
than one-third of those persons who were held as slaves have obtained their free- 
dom. In Puerto Rico, which has remained faithful to the mother country, and 
where perfect order has prevailed, slavery ceased to exist several years ago ; Those 
who were slaves are now freemen, and as such they make contracts with their former 
masters, and the most perfect harmony prevails between the two classes. That 
island will send its freely-elected senators and deputies to the next Cortes to repre- 
sent it and to defend the rights and interests of that important province, which now 
differs in no respect from the other provinces of Spain. All this would have been 
accomplished in Cuba had it not been for this unjustifiable insurrection, which is a 
disgrace to civilization, and all will be established there when peace shall have been 
reestablished. The Government of His Majesty has made every effort to bring about 
this result, and there is no sacrifice that it has not made and is not willing to make 
in order to secure it. 

In the midst of a formidable civil war, in which liberty and the conquests of mod- 
ern civilization are hazarded, it has sent since the accession of His Majesty to the 
throne — that is to say, in one year — 28,445 soldiers of all kinds, who would have been 
very serviceable to it could they have been used against the Carlist forces. When 
General Jovellar was asked for by public opinion as governor-general of the great 
Antilla, on account of the excellent record which he had left there before, His Maj- 
esty's Government did not hesitate to let him go, although it had for some time been 
intending to give him another important command in the peninsula ; and if, as there 
is every reason to expect, the civil war is soon brought to an end in Spain, a new 
army will at once be sent to Cuba, which will speedily give the deathblow to the 
already expiring insurrection. Even without this His Majesty's Government has 
sufficient forces in the island to secure this result, although of course not so speed- 
ily. We have the following land and naval forces there, and I do not fear that the 
correctness of this list will be disputed : 

Forty-five vessels of all classes, with a nominal force of 4,770 horses, 135 cannon, and 
2,426 seamen ; 55 battalions, 6 regiments of cavalry, 2 of artillery, 1 of light field 
troops, 1 company of naval mechanics, 3 regiments of civil guardsmen, 1 sanitary bri- 
gade, 1 battalion of engineers, 33 companies of skirmishers, 2 squadrons of dragoons, 
and 1 transport brigade, making altogether a total of 273 chiefs, 3,054 officers, 68,115 
soldiers, 8,478 horses, 462 mules, and 42 pieces. Since the foregoing enumeration 
was made, moreover, 10,370 men have embarked for the island. 

There are also the volunteer bodies, consisting of natives of the Peninsula and 
Cubans, amounting to upward of fifty thousand men. These last figures are official 
and irrecusable, and show what is the true spirit of the island and its adhesion to the 
mother country; for while the Cubans who are fighting for the insurrection are less 
than one thousand in number, those who have voluntarily taken up arms against it 
number more than forty thousand. There is one fact which may seem incomprehen- 
sible to those who have not carefully considered the matter and who are not familiar 
with the nature of the war in Cuba and the topographical characteristics of the 
territory in which it is carried on. I refer to the duration of the contest in spite of 
the disparity existing between the forces of the contending parties ; and yet this 
fact is susceptible of an easy explanation, and numerous analogous instances in the 
history of nations may be adduced. For the very reason that the Cuban rebels are, 
for the most part, negroes and mulattoes, they do not experience the ordinary neces- 
sities of civilization. They are able to live in the jungles and deserts of the island, 
and thence fall upon estates and other property like birds of prey, pillaging and 
applying the torch of the incendiary. They live on the fruits of the country, such 
as the plaintain and others which grow spontaneously in that fertile soil. Salt, and 
hogs and other animals are so numerous that they are everywhere met with, and 
serve as food. 

A single fact will suffice to convince anyone of the strength of this element as an 
aid to the insurrection. The Baracoa district, having an extent of 90 miles, had but 
42 inhabitants, while there was about the same number in Las Tunas and the terri- 
tory which separates the Mayari district from Guantahamo. The average number of 
inhabitants to the square geographical league throughout the island is 350. It is 
not, therefore, to be be wondered at that the insurgents should be able to sustain 
themselves as nomadic tribes in a country of such a character — uncultivated, almost 
a wilderness, extremely broken and mountainous, and covered with immense forests 
which can not even be set on fire by reason of their constant and extraordinary 
humidity. Thus it is that they have never been able to establish even the shadow 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



95 



of a government. If the insurgents were regular troops and carried on a civilized 
warfare, the contest would long since have been ended by two or three battles. 
The matter, however, becomes one of much greater difficulty when they avoid all 
fighting save from an ambuscade, and run and hide when they see our troops, in order 
to meet again in their lurking places when the danger is past. 

It is thus seen why it has never been possible to entirely destroy the so-called 
palenques, or bands of fugitive negroes, who have fled from the estates, and who 
seek refuge in the aforesaid Baracoa district. Even when the island was in a state 
of profound peace, neither the battues of the inhabitants of the towns nor the pur- 
suit of our troops could accomplish this. 

Instances of the long duration of wars of this kind are neither new nor rare. To 
causes similar to those mentioned was due the fact that the United States, notwith- 
standing their immense resources and the enormous disparity which existed between 
the forces of the combatants, required more than double the time that the insurrec- 
tion has lasted in Cuba to suppress the one in Florida. France too, with all her 
power, was many years in subduing the rebel tribes of Algeria; and scarcely is 
there a nation in the world that does not furnish similar instances. The effects of 
the insurrection, although deplorable, as the effects of an insurrection always are, 
have not sensibly diminished the wealth of the island; this is due to the fact that 
the insurgents have not been able to burn the many and rich estates of the western 
department, which is the most wealthy of all, both in point of population and pro- 
duction, as may be readily seen by glancing at the map of Cuba which accompanies 
this memorandum, and as is proved beyond all doubt by the following official and 
irrecusable data: 

In the western department there were and still are — for, far from diminishing, 
their number has increased during the war — 1,070 sugar estates, while in the central 
department there were but 102, and in the eastern 200. The quantity of sugar pro- 
duced in the first-named department amounted to 500,000,000 kilograms, which quan- 
tity has also been increased, while that of the second only amounted to 17,000,000, 
and that of the third to 35,250,000 kilograms. The quantity of tobacco produced in 
the western department is 44,000 quintals, in the central department only 5,500, 
and in the eastern 252,000. It must be remembered that iu the territory comprised 
between Pinar del Eio and Guanajay, in the first of those departments, the exquisite 
tobacco known as that of La Vuelta de Abajo is exclusively produced. The price of 
this tobacco is constantly increasing, and is much higher than that produced in the 
eastern department, which is a second-class article. The quantity of coffee pro- 
duced in the western department amounts to 3,750,000 kilograms, that of the central 
department to 3,750, and that of the eastern to 5,000,000. Finally, the value of the 
cattle of all kinds in the western department is 2,000,000 pesetas, or $4,000,000; in 
the central and eastern departments, $1,000,000 each. 

It is therefore seen that the real wealth and the bulk of the population of the 
Island of Cuba are in the western department, which has scarcely suffered at all 
from the insurrection, and which, for the most part, has remained perfectly tranquil. 
But it is to be observed that the majority of the estates in the eastern department, 
situated near Santiago de Cuba and other towns, still remain unharmed, because, 
having been protected by our troops, it was impossible for the rebels to burn them, 
and the exportation of their products still goes on with the utmost regularity, 
because the railroad by which they are sent is held by our army, as is likewise the 
railway which connects Puerto Principe with the port of Nuevitas. 

For these reasons and because the insurgents do not hold a single port in the whole 
island, foreign commerce, instead of suffering any diminuation, has greatly increased 
since the outbreak of the insurrection, as is shown by the following statistical data, 
also official. This fact is due to the much greater production of the western depart- 
ment and to the increase in the value of its products. The amount of the receipts 
from customs in Cuba during the years stated is here given as follows: 



Tears. 


Import duties. 


Export duties. 


Other duties. 


Total 
receipts. 


1865 








Reals. 
240 881 160 


1866 








225 185, 180 


1867 








155, 426, 850 
146, 697, 190 
196, 776, 400 
264, 066, 090 


1868 








1869 








1870 








1871 








338, 175, 260 


1S72 








377, 330, 140 


1873 


205, 835, 210 
200, 792, 830 
78, 502, 160 


83, 457, 660 
75, 930, 660 
70, 220, 490 


179, 082, 700 
166, 825, 220 
58, 241, 860 


468, 375, 570 


1874 


443, 548, 710 


1876 


206, 964, 510 







Hots.— The receipts for 1875 are only for the first six months. 



96 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Theee figures furnish the best evidence that the general commerce of the world 
with the Island of Cuba has in no wise suffered, but that it has, on the contrary, 
increased since the insurrection began and during its prevalence. The greatest 
increase is observed in the trade of the island with the United States, with which 
country its commercial transactions are much more extensive than with any other. 
According to newspapers published in the United States, which keep aloof from 
politics and busy themselves exclusively with watching the progress and develop- 
ment of industry and commerce in all parts of the world, the commerce between the 
two countries has increased by more than one-third since the outbreak of the Cuban 
insurrection. Such testimony can be regarded with suspicion by no one. 

It is true that while commerce in general has not suffered, some foreigners residing 
in Cuba have sustained serious losses. His Majesty's Government, however, which 
deeply laments this, has always done justice to all claims that have been presented 
to it, amply indemnifying the losers for the injuries suffered by them; and this is 
acknowledged by all foreign Governments in their high impartiality. The Govern- 
ment of Spain, with equal good faith, admits that the taxes which it has been nec- 
essary to impose in consequence of the insurrection are burdensome. Even in this 
respect, however, the Government of His Majesty will not only scrupulously observe 
its treaties with other nations, but it is conscientiously seeking the best means of 
lightening these burdens. In consequence of the insurrection, moreover, the prop- 
erty of various foreigners, real estate owners, and manufacturers in the island was 
embargoed, but these measures, which have never been approved by the present 
Government, will be immediately annulled, and all the embargoes which have been 
ordered as a war measure will be raised. To this effect the most positive instruc- 
tions have been given to General Jovellar, the new Governor-General, which he will 
carry out with the good faith and energy which are characteristic of him in the 
cases of those who are really citizens of foreign countries. 

With this statement of facts, your excellency will be able, in view of your expe- 
rience and well-known talent, to enlighten the opinion of the country to whose Gov- 
ernment you are accredited on the interesting subject which I have been discussing, 
and successfully to refute the misstatements which the filibusters have sought to 
circulate everywhere. Although this memorandum is designed only for your own 
information and guidance, you may read it to the minister of foreign affairs of the 
United States, and give him a copy of it, confidentially, if he desires it. 

God guard, etc. 

Ferndo. Calderon y Collantes. 



Mr. dishing to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, February 21, 1876. 
Fish, Secretary ', Washington: 

My last telegram seems not to have been understood. I repeat, in 
different words. 

I see prospect of possibility of mediatory arrangements if you can 
answer for the desperate men of the Cuban Junta, enemies of Spain, 
but worse enemies of the United States. 

I need instructions as to reasonable bases of such possible arrange- 
ment. See private letter of this date. 

Cushing, Minister. 

Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 849.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, February 21, 1876. 

Sir : It surprised me exceedingly to learn by your No. 288 that the 
idea had been conceived in London and transmitted thence to Wash- 
ington of any delay on my part of action on your No. 266. 

What occurred in this respect of erroneously supposed delay will be 
apparent on comparing my two dispatches, Nos. 692 and 703, in the 
light of the following explanations : 

On the day of receiving your telegraphic instructions of November 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 97 

27 — that is, November 28 — Mr. Calderon y Collantes and myself met 
at dinner at the palace. 

I availed myself of that opportunity to request an interview at the 
earliest possible opportunity, which was fixed by Mr. Calderon y Col- 
lantes for the 30th, when copy of your note was delivered to him. 

It was impossible for us to discuss your note then, because he is not 
sufficiently acquainted with English to have read it intelligently; nor, 
if he had been, was it desirable that he should have spoken on the hasty 
impressions of the moment. 

My apprehension was lest some such hasty and ill-considered appre- 
ciation of your note should elicit expressions fatal to the continuance 
of peaceful relations. On reading or hearing read that note a minis- 
ter might, if forced to pronounce on the moment, repel intervention ; 
none certainly would invite or accept it, without consulting his col- 
leagues and the King. 

I therefore requested him to receive me again so soon as he should 
be able to have the note translated and to read and reflect upon it, and 
not to come to any conclusion on the subject until after such second 
interview, which was fixed for the 4th of December. 

I regarded this arrangement as the best possible for us, nay, as the 
only one involving any probability of advantage. 

Now, that necessary pause of three days is the delay of which Lord 
Derby speaks. 

I think the use, or abuse, rather, made of it in London is very sug- 
gestive and significant. 

Lord Derby, as reported by General Schenck, began by suggesting 
postponement of definite action in express words. He then proceeds 
to repel, in various forms of expression, the idea of any pressure — that 
is, intervention. He concluded with vague expression of " good offices." 

Has he ever communicated to you the definite purpose, communica- 
tion — and even conception — of which he expressly postponed? 

I do not know. I presume not; or that if he has, it is not of a nature 
to serve us here, for if it were, you would have instructed me on the 
subject. 

I do know that he has instructed Mr. Layard that it would be unsea- 
sonable aud premature to think even of mediation until after Spain 
shall have made further efforts unsuccessfully to suppress by her own 
force the insurrection in Cuba. 

I have great esteem and respect for Mr. Layard. We work together 
very well on specific questions of common concernment, such as Burriel 
and the procedure question. But he has his own official cares, which 
are sufficiently grave; more private claims than we, and two trouble- 
some treaty questions, while we have but one. It is quite natural and 
proper that he should look primarily to the interests of his own Gov- 
ernment. 

You suggest further, in your No. 288, that the interview of the 4th 
of December "appears to have been confined to our particular griefs, 
and no allusion being made to the general question of the condition of 
Cuba as distinguished therefrom." 

I do not so understand it. On recurring to the full report of that 
interview, in my No. 703, you will perceive that every word uttered by 
me was on that "general question" and the consequent complication. 
I said nothing of our "private griefs." It was Mr. Calderon y Collantes 
who introduced and dwelt upon that point, evidently evading the gen- 
eral question. 

Was it convenient for me then and there to push him on the question 



98 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

of intervention? I thought not. The first great object of diplomatic 
tactics had been attained — that of avoiding rupture and preparing the 
ground for the continuance of negotiation. 

Next, as to intervention. I supposed, erroneously it may be, that no 
pressure in that direction was to be undertaken by me in the first instance 
until it should be known whether we were to be supported or opposed 
by the powers. Why else invoke their moral support? 

I knew on the 4th of December what Lord Derby had said, and to 
my mind it was anything but encouraging; and the result has justified 
that impression. 

But the other powers had not then spoken, nor have they to this day 
spoken at Madrid in any sense of encouragement to us. 

For instance, the Austrian minister is instructed against us; the Ger- 
man minister, from which quarter something might have been expected, 
declares that he has received no instructions on the general question 
(he is careful to remind me of this when we converse on the procedure 
question); and the British minister, as we have seen, is instructed that 
it is not yet time to mention even mediation to Spain. 

Of course, it is impossible to force any of my colleagues to speak on 
the general subject; and they are all reserved and reticent regarding 
it, except when they are adverse. 

It is my duty to tell you the truth in this respect, and the truth is 
that no foreign minister here is prepared to back us in saying to Spain: 
You must close up the war in Cuba immediately, or we will intervene 
to force a conclusion in our own way. 

The question of intercession or mediation is different. Lord Derby 
despairs on that point; I do not. 

The essential premises of mediation are reciprocal confidence and 
good will, with mutual interests. 

The interests of Spain and of the United States in Cuba are identical. 
At present we derive great net benefits from it; she, none. The immi- 
nent destruction of its productiveness would be alike disastrous to her 
and to us. 

She is willing enough to confide in us if we will let her. The proof 
of that is to be found not in profession (although that we have), but 
in the analysis of the diplomatic relations of Spain with other powers, 
contained in previous dispatches. In fine, whatever causes of grief or 
jealousy she has against us, she has greater against others. Neverthe- 
less, she is now anxious and suspicious with regard to the United States. 
She knows that thousands of bad Spaniards (called Cubans), having a 
holy horror of the smell of gunpowder, have fled to "snug harbor" in 
New York, Key West, and New Orleans, have been dedicating them- 
selves there for years, by distribution of bonds, by speeches, newspapers, 
solicitations, exaggerated claims, violations of law, and in every other 
possible way, to the task of embroiling the two Governments in war, and 
are the efficient authors of all our troubles with her, directly or indi- 
rectly, including the tragedy of the Yirginius. 

I dread emigrant rebels. How fatal were the French emigres to 
Prussia in the early years of the French Bevolution! How frequently 
the Jacobites involved France in fruitless hostility with England ! How 
the refugee Poles lured Napoleon I to his destruction by Bussia, and 
refugee Mexicans Napoleon III to the commencement of his destruction 
in America! I do not yet forget the picture of the disastrous intrigues 
of the rebel emigrants of the Greek Bepublics, more prejudicial to their 
friends than to their enemies, as drawn by the masterly hand of Thu- 
cidydes, or of those of the Italian Bepublics, so graphically described 
bv GuicciArdini and Machiavelli. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 99 

God forbid that these dishonored men, who prate of the independence 
of Cuba, without manliness or courage to fight for it, preferring the 
safer occupation of trading in bogus bonds and calumniating the Presi- 
dent and yourself, should succeed in making our country the instru- 
ment of their rancorous hatred of their own country, Spain. 

In this connection, be it remembered that the President's message 
asserts the absolute nonexistence in Cuba at the present time of the 
essential elements of an independent state, and thus proclaims this 
fact to the world. 

Then, Spain is told every day, by leading newspapers of the United 
States, that the objects of our naval preparations is to force the hand of 
Congress and of the people by producing some casus belli for electoral 
purposes; and although nobody really believes what newspapers say, 
yet they have their effect in the propagation of mischievous irritations 
and dangerous suspicions, as so well exposed in the late remarkable 
speech of Prince Bismarck in the German Eeichsrath. 

I meet all these things as well as I may by pointing to the kindly 
assurances contained in your note of November 5, in the President's 
message, and in sundry special dispatches, such as your No. 281, not- 
withstanding their being dispatches of complaint against acts or omis- 
sions of the Spanish Government. 

But the obstacles which thus far it has been impossible for me to get 
over are in the insolent assumption of the knots of Spanish traitors in 
New York and Paris, who presume not only to dictate to Spain, but 
also to the United States, and in the impracticable character of the 
Dominican chief's of the insurgents in Cuba. 

If you can answer for them, there is hope for peaceful and harmonious 
action between the two nations, to the end of peace, emancipation, and 
good government in Cuba, by the mediation of the United States, with 
or without the aid of Great Britain or Germany. 

As for these European powers, suffer me to say, " Timeo Danaos et 
dona ferentes." 

I have, etc., 0. Cushing. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 855.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, February 28, 1876. 

Sir: My No. 853, as being written for the special purpose of replying 
to the inquiry propounded in your No. 301 on the subject of the course 
followed here by Germany in the matter of our relations to Cuba, 
touched but incidentally on that of Bussia. 

On reflection, it seems to me convenient to be more explicit on this 
point. 

The Bussian minister here, Mr. Koudriaffsky, is in very infirm health 
and goes but little into society. I rarely have opportunity of meeting 
him except in special calls, given or received. On such occasions we 
talk together very cordially and freely. His intelligence and other 
qualities entitle him to much consideration. His relations to men and 
things you may infer from the fact that, for so many years, Bussia has 
kept aloof from Spain, even under Queen Isabel, that she paid a pen- 
sion to Don Carlos, and that she only changed her line of policy in 
these respects on the accession of Don Alfonso. 

Your dispatch No. 298 of the 19th of January, communicating the 
tenor of the interview between Mr. Boker and Prince Gortchakoff, 
arrived here on the 9th instant. 



100 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

The first time of my meeting the Eussian minister thereafter was at 
the ministry of state, when he was suffering so much that, so far from 
attempting to speak to him on business, I could but voluntarily yield 
to him my turn, in order that he might be able as soon as possible to 
return to his own house, suggesting my intention to call on him at an 
early day when he should be in condition for conversation. 

Subsequently he left his card with intimation that he should be glad 
to see me, and I called accordingly. 

I found him very feeble, dozing in his armchair by the fire. 

After a little miscellaneous conversation, I introduced the subject of 
our difficulties with Spain. 

He said that he had supposed that the Spanish Government had sat- 
isfied all our claims, but that it seemed we had since presented some 
new ones. 

I replied that we had not presented any claims, old or new, other 
than such as were comprehended in principle in previous general recla- 
mations; but that a much more serious question remained pending, 
that of the unsuppressed insurrection in Cuba, which imposed on us 
embarrassments of the same nature as those which .Russia and Austria 
suffered from the troubles in Turkey; and that I had hoped his Gov- 
ernment would deem it advisable to make such representations to the 
Spanish Government as might hasten the peaceful settlement which 
the United States had in view (purposely employing, as near as possible, 
the introductory language of Mr. Boker in his interview with Prince 
Gortchakoff). 

Mr. Koudriaffsky replied that he had not received instructions to 
that effect; that he had information of the interview of Mr. Boker with 
Prince Gortchakoff, and understood it had for its subject the reclama- 
tions of the United States, and no more; that he had heard of your 
note of November 5, but had never seen it, nor, so far as he knew, had 
his Government. 

I then explained to him that the note consisted of two parts, one enu- 
merating our unsatisfied reclamations, and the other setting forth the 
exigency of a speedy conclusion of the existing hostilities in Cuba, so 
prejudicial alike to Cuba, to Spain, and to the United States. 

He repeated that, having no instructions on the subject, he therefore 
had not taken any interest in it. 

I could not with propriety urge the matter any further, and proceeded 
to converse with him on other topics of secondary political interest, 
especially to answer particular inquiries of his concerning Alaska and 
its metallic productions, and concerning the condition of our Indians. 

Let me now revert to the remarks of Prince Gortchakoff to Mr. Boker, 
and collate them with what was said to me by Mr. Koudriaffsky. 

It is true, as Prince Gortchakoff says, that there is little relation of 
-interests or intercourse of any kind between Kussia and Spain, except 
of a dynastic or nobiliary character. 

It is not true, as he says, that the past alienation of Russia from Spain 
deprives the former of present influence at Madrid, as you may judge 
from the efforts of the Spanish Government to conciliate that of Russia, 
of which you have been informed by me from time to time. 

He does not encourage the United States to proceed to "serious meas- 
ures" in the present condition of Spain, but the contrary. 

He spontaneously offered good offices and friendly advice, " if this 
course should be in accordance with the wishes of the Emperor;" not 
a very satisfactory reservation. 
He is profuse in the utterance of courtier expressions, and in profes 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 101 

Bions of sympathy with the United States ; all which results in his 
advising Mr. Koudriaffsky that we are but pushing private claims 
here, with which Eussia has no concernment. 

There, in my opinion, crops out a reminiscence of the Perkins claim 
and of Mr. Catacazy. 

Permit me, before leaving this unwelcome subject, to submit some 
relative suggestions. 

All the flattering and sympathetic utterances of Prince Gortchakoff 
sound hollow to my ear. Eussia can have no ties of sympathy with us, 
political, religious, or commercial. She had very close ties to attach her 
to us until twenty-five years ago, down to which time we were her best 
customers, and almost her sole channel of supply for the commodities 
of the West Indies, but our prohibitory duties on iron and hemp have 
cut off that connection, so profitable to both of us, and our chief com- 
mercial relation now is one of repulsion, that of rivals in the production 
of wheat for the consumption of Europe. 

Moreover, she doubts now, since the extension of her power in the 
seas of Japan, whether she did wisely in ceding to us the mainland, and 
especially the islands, of Alaska. 

In my judgment, therefore, the best that we can hope from Russia in 
the present question is indifference, and we have cause to fear, in the 
last resort, tendencies of rapprochement to Spain rather than to the 
United States. 

I observe in your circular to Mr. Boker (as well as to others) that the 
idea of the spontaneous abandonment by Spain of the contest in Cuba 
is presented in more distinct terms than it is in the note of November 
or in the message. 

Now, it is self-evident that Spain will not spontaneously abandon 
Cuba, 

The other alternatives presented are, agreement between the parties 
in the contest, or leaving Spain to terminate the contest by force. 

1 can not judge from the report of Mr. Boker's interview with Prince 
Gortchakoff whether these three alternative suppositions were each dis- 
tinctly represented to him by Mr. Boker; but certainly nothing appears 
in the remarks of Prince Gortchakoff to show that, if Spain refuses to 
spontaneously abandon the contest (as she certainly will), and if she is 
unable (however willing she may be) to end the contest by any agree- 
ment with the insurgents or their professed chiefs in New York — and 
if nothing remains for her but to continue to endeavor to exterminate 
the contest by force, and if the United States intervene to defeat her 
endeavors in that respect, which is war — I say, nothing appears in the 
report to show that Eussia would countenance such extreme action on 
the part of the United States. 

One thing more. All the great powers are preoccupied with the 
question of Turkey. France looks on with angry consciousness of her 
incapacity to act a first part in the question, and while dissatisfied with 
the substitution of the influence of Great Britain in Egypt for her own, 
yet feels inclined, nevertheless, for want of other resources, to lean on 
Great Britain, while anxiously deterring to Eussia. Meanwhile the 
three Emperors have undertaken the task of nominal intervention, 
reduced almost to mere intercession, in the internal affairs of Turkey, 
in which Great Britain, after securing control of the Suez Canal with- 
out so much as saying "by your leave" to the other powers, acquiesces 
in the present initiatory step, reserving to herself perfect freedom of 
action respecting all further incidents in the East. 

Now, what is the present step, in which alone all the powers are of 
accord? 



102 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

The brief but significant response of the Porte is, it seems to me, a 
remarkable exhibition of statemanship. It says, in effect, to the allies: 
"You advise us, in the interest of peace, to introduce certain specified 
reforms of administration in our discontented provinces. We had already 
determined to do not only so much, but even much more; we cheerfully 
take your advice therefore, but we do so in the express understanding 
that you, Russia; that you, Austria, are to cease to allow your subjects 
or prot6g6s to aid our rebels in Bosnia and Herzegovina; that you are 
to use all your moral authority at least to induce those rebels to lay down 
their arms and accept the measures of reform graciously granted by the 
Sultan." 

Such are the conditions of a practical friendly intervention which 
are now present to everybody's mind in Madrid, to wit, an agreement 
between the Porte and its rebel subjects by means of the mediation and 
moral influence of the allies on condition of certain administrative 
reforms conceded by the Porte. 

The sympathies, the sentimental emotions, the reminiscences of fron- 
tier disturbances, the contingent ambitions of Russia and Austria with 
respect to the rebel subjects of the Porte are far stronger than ours 
on the side of Cuba. And yet those powers recognize the duty of apply- 
ing pressure in the sense of peace equally to the rebels as to the Porte. 

It is the third of the alternatives suggested in your circular instruc- 
tion, namely, agreement between the parties to the contest in Cuba. In 
such a plan, if promoted by us, the great powers would go with us, 
while if we undertake to force Spain to abandon Cuba, which is hostili- 
ties at least, if not formal war, we shall have all the powers exerting 
their moral authority (if not more) in behalf of Spain. 
I have, etc., 

O. Cushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Cushing. 

No. 323.] Department of State, 

Washington, March 1, 1876. 

Sir : I have laid before the President your ISTo. 777, under date of the 
16th of January, and he received with sincere gratification the expres- 
sions of Mr. Calderon y Collantes of the earnest desire of the Govern- 
ment of Don Alfonso in the sense of peace, good government, and liberty 
in Cuba, and that his Government freely admitted the political expedi- 
ency and necessity of abandoning the old colonial system andof promptly 
consummating the emancipation of the slaves in that island. 

The President feels that these expressions bring the two Governments 
in accord in their views and wishes on these points. 

He accepts, also, the earnest expression of consciousness on the part of 
Spain that the United States and Spain are by commercial ties insepa- 
rably associated in the question of the tranquillity and prosperity of 
Cuba. 

Nature has placed that island in our immediate neighborhood, and 
has established the foundations of the relations of business, commerce, 
and material interest, which Spain thus recognizes. 

Discovery and long occupation have made the island a possession of 
Spain, and the United States has no desire to disturb the relations 
which result therefrom. These positions being reciprocally recognized, 
there should be no cause for serious disagreement, or for any mistrust 
between the two powers with regard to the future of the island, or in 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 103 

reference to the measures to be adopted to bring about a return of 
peace and prosperity. 

Part of the territory of the one power, it is the seat of immense trade 
for the other. The interests of both in its welfare, its peace, and its 
good government are equal but not identical. The people of both Gov- 
ernments resort thither, associate together, and, with the natives of the 
island, invest their means, and are alike anxious for its best interests. 
It behooves the two Governments, therefore, each in the direction and 
in the proportion of its respective but different relations, to seek its 
peace, to advance its welfare, and to assist toward its prosperity. 

I laving a common desire, with similar interests to protect and equiva- 
lent advantages to gain from an improvement in its condition, the 
Government of the United States has been ready to effectually coop- 
erate with or aid the government of His Majesty in securing these 
results, and the earnest efforts of the President in that direction are 
still ready to be called into exercise. 

In considering the means to this end he desires to propose none but 
those of friendly suggestion and, if it be practicable, of friendly advice 
to those who are in resistance in Cuba. 

He finds in the statement reported by you as made by Mr, Calderon 
y Collantes that his Government freely admits the political expediency 
and necessity of abandoning the old colonial system of administration 
in Cuba, an agreement with the opinion expressed in a recent instruc- 
tion to you (No. 266, under date of 5th of November, 1875), which avoids 
any necessity of reference to the causes which have led to the insurrec- 
tion of Yara, and which have prevented its suppression. 

The admission that the old colonial system is inadequate to the gov- 
ernment of a people of a million and a half, in the present age, imposes 
upon the parent Government the urgent necessity of the early forma- 
tion of another system to take the place of that which has outlived its 
capacity and adaptation to the happiness and welfare of those for whose 
happiness and welfare government alone exists. In the present case 
the President is of opinion that it belongs to the enlightened wisdom 
of the Government of Spain without delay to inaugurate this new sys- 
tem, suited to the more advanced opinions of modern civilization and 
more consonant with the prevailing opinion of enlarged powers of local 
self-government. 

But Mr. Calderon y Collantes, as you inform me, was pleased to invite 
a frank statement concerning the precise thing which the United States 
would advise or wish Spain to do, adding that he could not conceive 
that anything unjust or impracticable would be proposed. In this last 
expression he does no more than justice to the desire and the wishes of 
the United States. In response therefore to the suggestion of the dis- 
tinguished minister of state and in full accord with the feelings and 
frankness which led him to invite expression on the part of this Gov- 
ernment, I venture to submit some views which the President desires 
to bring to his consideration. 

In so doing, it would be unjust both to the minister of state and to 
the United States if what is to be said were other than a plain and 
frank statement of the views of the President. At the same time, if 
in the reference which may be herein made to any relations or inci- 
dents there be found ought to excite any sensibilities, he desires in 
advance to assure His Majesty's Government that it will be deeply 
regretted, and that no word will be said other than with the view to a 
full consideration of the real and actual condition of the question, with 
which he believes His Majesty's Government as well as himself is 



104 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

endeavoring to deal, in the interests of both nations, and for the peace, 
prosperity, and development of the wealth and industry of the Island 
of Cuba. 

In the first place, the President desires emphatically to disabuse the 
mind of the Government and people of Spain of the existence of any 
desire on the part of the Government of the United States for the 
acquisition of Cuba or for its annexation, directly or indirectly, to the 
possessions of this country. Whatever suspicions of such desire may 
heretofore have been entertained should be rejected to enable Spain to 
do justice to the motives, policy, and feelings of the United States. 
"Whatever grounds may be supposed to have existed in the past evinc- 
ing such desire, there are at this time no considerations, moral, social, 
political, or financial, which are regarded by the President as making 
the acquisition of Cuba by the United States either desirable or con- 
venient. 

The President, moreover, desires in an equally emphatic manner to 
express the desire of the United States to maintain a firm, solid, and 
enduring peace with Spain, and to remove every disturbing question 
which embarrasses or which can threaten the relations of the two 
countries. 

With these premises, I proceed to respond to Mr. Calderon y Col- 
lantes's request for a frank statement of what the United States would 
advise or wish Spain to do with regard to Cuba. You will, in the name 
of the President, state that his earnest wish is: 

First. The mutual and reciprocal observance of treaty obligations, 
and a full, friendly, and liberal understanding and interpretation of all 
doubtful treaty provisions, wherever doubt or question may exist. 

Second. Peace, order, and good government in Cuba, which involves 
prompt and effective measures to restore peace, and the establish- 
ment of a government suited to the spirit and necessities of the age; 
liberal in its provisions, wherein justice can be meted out to all alike, 
according to defined and well-established provisions. 

Third. Gradual but effectual emancipation of the slaves. 

Fourth. Improvement of commercial facilities and the removal of the 
obstructions now existing in the way of trade and commerce. 

Concerning the first point the President at this time does not desire 
to make particular reference to questions which alone concern indi- 
vidual grievances of the United States or its citizens. 

These have already been placed fully before the minister of state, and 
it is hoped that negotiations now in progress will dispose of all such 
questions in a manner satisfactory and beneficial to both parties. 

He therefore contents himself with the expression of this hope, and 
is of opinion, if irreconcilable constructions be found, or if the pro- 
visions of existing treaties be too indefinite or not sufficiently compre- 
hensive, that these difficulties may hereafter be removed by a new and 
more explicit convention. 

Concerning the second point, providing for the return of peace, the 
establishment of order and good government in Cuba, the President 
recognizes that the successive governments which have existed in Spain 
since the breaking out of the insurrection and the different ministers 
who have, from time to time, directed the affairs of state have been 
unanimous in their expression of desire to restore peace and create 
reforms in Cuba. 

That the system under which Cuba has been governed has become 
antiquated, unsuited to her condition, calculated to excite opposition 
and hostility, and attended by acts of oppression and wrong to her 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 105 

people and of injury to all having relations with her appears to be 
fully admitted, and is commented upon and proclaimed continually both, 
in Spain and Cuba. 

Upon many occasions when these matters have been discussed, the 
facts have been frankly admitted, and the assurance given that when 
the rebellion had been crushed out by force, then wise and just reforms 
would be introduced. 

But it has been found up to the present time impossible to conquer a 
peace by force of arms, and every suggestion that amnesty, reform, and 
the certainty of good government might be effective where force has 
failed has been repelled. 

More than six years ago such was the condition of affairs, and it 
remains the same to day. Assurances were then given that reforms and 
concessions would be inaugurated as soon as the insurrection should be 
subdued, but that they would not be allowed while armed opposition 
remained. Since then, and under the policy of making that last which 
should be first, of making that the result which should be the means, 
the insurrectionary forces have year by year prosecuted their operations 
over more extensive regions, and their torch is devastating farther and 
father. 

Experience has shown, upon this continent at least, the difficulty, if 
not the impossibility, of subduing by mere force any serious uprising of 
a people against a distant government where grave causes of discon- 
tent and injury exist, and where the parent government persistently 
refuses to remove the causes of complaint or to remedy the evils until 
the insurrection shall have been effectually crushed. 

In the last century Great Britain refused to concede to her colonies 
which now are embraced within the United States privileges and rights 
which, if then conceded, would have left those colonies part of the pos- 
session of Great Britain. Separation ensued. 

In the present century when Canada complained of wrongs and of 
the maladministration of government, Great Britain, with the experi- 
ence of the past, wisely made concessions and introduced reforms. 
Resistance disappeared, and Canada is a loyal, happy, and quiet depend- 
ence of Great Britain. 

The earlier part of the present century presents instances of colonies 
on this continent dropping off from the parent country for want of 
timely concession. 

Puerto Rico is a contented possession of Spain, having received con- 
cessions withheld from Cuba, which has been the scene of war for seven 
years. 

The President believes and desires most earnestly, in the way of 
friendly consultation and fraternal advice, to impress upon His Majesty 
and his Government that in order to allay the existing strife in Cuba 
the olive branch is more potent than the sword. 

If, in addition, the measures adopted to repress the insurrection are 
harsh and ill-directed, each new effort gives foundation for a new dis- 
satisfaction and new cause for rebellion. 

The President therefore amicably, sincerely, and earnestly suggests 
the immediate adoption of measures founded on a declaration of com- 
plete and entire amnesty, with an invitation to all Cubans to return at 
will, and to all those in arms to return to peaceful occupation, guaran- 
teeing to all immunity in person and property for acts of rebellion, 
such declaration to be accompanied by the adoption and proclamation 
of the necessary measures to provide a just and liberal government, 
with large powers of local and self control, under proper municipal 



106 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

organizations, suited to the colonial possessions of an enlightened dis- 
tant power at the present day. 

He places these requirements together and dependent each upon the 
other, because experience has demonstrated that no other course can 
be effective. 

The President is of opinion that the administration of law in Spain 
has been demonstrated to be prompt, searching, and decisive when the 
Government so desires; that impositions by way of taxation or contri- 
bution to the support of the Government have not there generally been 
excessive or unequally distributed; that justice is meted out to indi- 
viduals with impartiality and fairness; that positions of trust and 
honor are held by men worthy of distinction, and that the opportuni- 
ties for education and cultivation are ample to all who desire to avail 
themselves thereof. 

It is believed, however, that in Cuba no such advantages or immu- 
nities have been provided or enjoyed, and that abuses and wrongs which 
would not be tolerated in the peninsula have been allowed and are per- 
petuated in this island. 

The administration of law has been substantially subordinate to 
military force ; offenses against the Government, whether really com- 
mitted or only suspected, have been punished at the will of military 
officers or under the forms of military courts, and the island has been, 
in fact, governed, even in times of peace, by martial law. 

Exactions by way of taxes, imposts, and contributions have been 
onerous and oppressive, so much so, in fact, as to make it often ques- 
tionable whether the possession of property, with the risks attendant 
upon its cultivation, would not result in loss. These exactions have 
been governed by no fixed rule, are enforced by an arbitrary power in 
the island, and large proportions fail to reach the public treasury, or to 
contribute in any manner to the support of the Government, but are 
diverted to private purposes. The existence of such a system actually 
tends to prolong the war, and to make those who profit by such trans- 
actions unwilling to change the condition of affairs. 

Public positions are held by persons sent by Spain to the island, who 
are wanting in interest in the welfare of Cuba, and who resort thither 
for the mere purpose of pecuniary profit, intending to return to Spain 
so soon as their avarice is satisfied. 

General report and belief speak loudly of corruption, and a large 
number of public officers are charged with securing profit from their 
positions. As a consequence, the whole administration of the island 
suffers in public estimation and is believed to be wanting in the quali- 
ties which alone can satisfy an enlightened public opinion. 

Oppressive commercial regulations, injurious to trade, discriminating 
directly against Cuba, enhance the price of commodities. Fines 
imposed upon vessels for trivial offenses and large exactions by way of 
consular fees for clearances of vessels destined for her ports discourage 
trade and commerce and tend to place the island at a serious disad- 
vantage. 

All these evils are matters of public notoriety, discussion, and com- 
ment, and are as loudly condemned in Spain as in the United States. 

Spain can not desire to continue such a system, or to permit it to 
exist, and at the same time she stands before the world as perpetuating 
the system and as responsible directly for all the results which legiti- 
mately flow therefrom. 

The absence of just rights and protection and the perpetuation of 
these wrongs has been the cause of the discontent in Cuba; the further 
continuance of this condition of things will protract the strife. 



AFFAIKS IN CUBA. 107 

Upon the third point it seems necessary only to point to recent events 
in this country and in Europe, which have demonstrated that the day 
has passed when the enlightened sentiment of the world will tolerate 
the holding of a race of human beings in a condition of slavery. 

It is true that private rights, organized methods of labor, which can 
not be rudely changed, and public considerations growing out of the 
enfranchisement of a large body of slaves may make it necessary that 
the steps to this end should be carefully adopted. At the same time, 
the point to be gained is the fact of the emancipation attended by well- 
devised measures to render it effectual. 

Upon the last point, concerning the improvement of commercial facili- 
ties and the removal of the obstructions to trade, it can not be ques- 
tioned that, with peace established and liberal government introduced 
in Cuba, the existing commercial regulations will prove entirely inade- 
quate, whether regarded in the light of the interests of the inhabitants 
and owners of property in Cuba or in that of the interests of commercial 
nations trading with the island. 

The obstructions which hamper and burden commerce at the present 
day with Cuba, to a large exteut closing the trade of the island to many 
of the productions of the United States and of other countries, are part 
and parcel of a system which should be removed in the interest and for 
the welfare of the people of Cuba and for the promotion of free com- 
mercial intercourse between that productive island and the rest of the 
world. 

Establish peace, good order, and good government: allow full oppor- 
tunity for the development of the resources of the island and the 
introduction into it upon terms favorable to its interests of the pro- 
ductions of other countries and Spain will certainly convert the island, 
now in a state of discontent, distrust, and rebellion, into a prosperous 
and happy people. 

If the views of the Government of the King are in accord with those 
of the President (as herein expressed on the invitation of the minister 
of state) as to the means to be adopted to restore peace and tranquillity 
to Cuba, and if that Government request his good offices to that end, 
he will cheerfully and readily use every proper effort in his power to 
secure this much-desired result. 

These views are given in response to the invitation of Mr. Calderon y 
Collantes, as communicated by yon, and are expressed in sincerity and. 
with the frankness due to a grave and important question. 

Should the Government of Spain agree in these suggestions and 
earnestly and firmly pursue such policy as is herein referred to, little 
doubt exists in the opinion of the President that such measures will 
prove effective. In any event, such a course would, in his opinion, 
immediately draw to the Spanish Government the moral support of the 
nations of the earth, and remove from the insurrection any sympathy 
which now attaches to it. 

The alternative of the course of conciliation and of reform which the 
President has suggested, in response to the invitation for the expression 
of advice, would involve Spain in the illogical position of a continued 
maintenance of a system which she admits to be wrong until greater 
sacrifices of life than have yet been made be incurred in sustaining and 
in enforcing such wrong, and other lives be sacrificed in the effort to 
obtain what Spain declares herself willing to accord. 

The President concludes with the renewed expression of his earnest 
hope that peace and order may soon be reestablished, and that the 
course of peaceful trade and intercourse may be soon restored to the 



108 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

peoples of both nations, with Cuba and its inhabitants undisturbed by 
the derangements which have attended upon the strife which has pre- 
vailed in the island for the past seven years. 
You are authorized to read this to the minister of state. 
I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 862.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, March 2, 1876. 

Sir: The President's message has had the salutary effect of modi- 
fying and mollifying to a very sensible degree the opinions and feelings, 
as well of the Cuban Spaniards as of the Peninsula Spaniards. 

As to the former, it has awakened them from the dream of immediate 
independence. Moreover, they desire to put a stop to the incendiary 
operations of the insurgents in Cuba, which they see tend to render the 
island as useless to them as to Spain and the United States. 

Such is now the state of mind of influential Cuban Spaniards in 
Europe, as manifested by late important publications of theirs, and as 
it also appears to be with the Cuban Spaniards in New York. 

Spain herself, while determined not to abandon Cuba (no Spanish 
Government, however constituted, could do that spontaneously and live 
a month), has been made more pliant by the confidence she finds in the 
message of the disinterestedness of our Government and in our recogni- 
tion of the nonexistence in Cuba at the present time of the necessary 
elements of independence; and she longs to have peace, to be relieved 
from further sacrifice of men and money, and to stand well with the 
world, and especially with the United States, in the administration of 
Cuba. 

The complete overthrow of Don Carlos, with the domestic questions 
and difficulties, political and financial, which the Government has now 
to encounter, augments rather than diminishes its anxiety for a real 
pacification of Cuba. 

And the problem, as regarded here, is whether the Dominicans who 
conduct the so-called military operations in Cuba, bred up as they have 
been in the traditions of mere devastation, which have converted Santo 
Domingo, once the richest of the great West India Islands, into the 
poorest, and kept it for three-quarters of a century in a state of semi- 
barbarism, can be reached by any pacific influences, either of Spain or 
of the United States. 

I have, etc., C. Gushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 324.] Department of State, 

Washington, March 3, 1876. 
Sir : Referring to your No. 777 under date of January 16, and in par- 
ticular to the statement that in your interview of the preceding day 
the minister of state had informed you that as it had occurred to him 
that this Government might have concluded not to act on his note of 
November 15 without hearing from the European Governments in rela- 
tion thereto, and that in this view he had resolved to defer writing the 
contemplated responsive circular of Spain to those Governments until 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 109 

after hearing from the United States, I have to state that on several 
occasions, and in various quarters, information has reached this Gov- 
ernment of some circular having been issued by the Spanish Govern- 
ment as to affairs in Cuba and in Spain. 

With these expressions of the minister of state before me, and as no 
copy of any such circular has directly or indirectly reached this Depart- 
ment, it is not considered likely that any response to instruction No. 266, 
addressed to you and read to the minister of state, has been issued, as 
has been stated, nor that any general circular has been issued bearing 
on affairs in Cuba. 

I shall be glad, however, to be informed to what paper these state- 
ments refer, and to be promptly furnished with copies of any paper or 
circular which may have been issued by the Spanish Government bear- 
ing on events in Cuba or in reference to Spanish affairs. 

If any such paper exists, you will appreciate that the reasons which 
have prevented the Department from making direct inquiries here con- 
cerning it render it inadvisable for you to make formal application 
therefor. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 865.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, March 7, 1876. 

Sre : Tour note of November 5 has been printed in a Spanish trans- 
lation without abridgment in several of the newspapers of Madrid, and 
is the subject of prolonged discussion by them, as well as of commen- 
tary in political circles. 

It is not in my power to send you translation of these articles with- 
out neglecting other things of more importance, nor does there seem to 
be need of it. 

I content myself with indicating some of the more salient points of 
criticism in this relation, which appear in print or in conversation. 

I. — The Eebellion in Cuba. 

1. It is alleged, while admitting acts of censurable violence on the 
part of officers or troops of the Government, that such acts were forced 
upon them by still worse acts of the rebels, beginning with the foreign 
adventurer Quesada, and continued by other foreign adventurers, 
Dominicans, Venezuelans, Mexicans, North Americans, and others, 
having no real interest in Cuba. 

2. It is alleged that the rebellion is really abandoned by most of the 
Spanish Cubans, who now are serving in the ranks of the loyal volun- 
teers, or hiding their shame and their sorrow as voluntary exiles in 
various countries of Europe and America. 

3. Much is said of the discreditable character and acts of the pre- 
tended directors of the rebellion in New York, who, it is charged, are 
mainly occupied in criminal intrigues against the peace of the United 
States. 

4. It is alleged that in its persistent efforts, at any cost of treasure 
and blood, to suppress the insurrection in Cuba, the Spanish Govern- 
ment does but follow in the footsteps of the United States in their 
recent determined stand for the maintenance of their national integrity. 

5. It "is alleged that the commerce of the United States has not suf- 



110 • AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

fered prejudice by the rebellion in Cuba; and that, in addition to the 
ordinary commerce, we now possess that of the supply of arms, pro- 
visions, aud other military and naval supplies greatly to our advantage. 

Nearly all the small arms used in Spain and Cuba, on both sides, are, 
it seems, manufactured in the United States. 

In this connection attention is called to the very great prejudice 
which our civil war inflicted on Great Britain and other countries by 
raising the price or cutting off the supply of the cotton of the United 
States. 

6. It is alleged that the intervention proposed by the United States 
appears to imply pressure on Spain rather than on the rebels, and that 
such intervention must necessarily be repelled by Spain for the same 
considerations, self-respect, and sovereign right which induced the 
United States to repel foreign intervention during the secession rebel- 
lion of our Southern States. 

7. Finally, it is alleged that all the European Governments, pre- 
occupied with cares of their own, regard with indifference the intima- 
tions on the subject of Cuba which have been made by the United 
States. 

I think what is said in this respect is based in part on informal con- 
versation between members of the diplomatic body and some of the 
members of the King's Government. 

II. — As to Reclamations. 

1. It is alleged that most of the reclamations put forward by the 
United States are for slave property, to the discredit of our emancipa- 
tion professions. 

In this relation attention is called by the newspapers to the pertinent 
clause of the President's message, and more especially to your recent 
letter to Mr. Swann, translation of which has made its appearance here 
in Spanish. 

The point is much dwelt upon, with citations from our newsj>apers. 

2. It is alleged that Spain has acted with great promptitude in 
agreeing to a claims commission earlier than any other Government 
ever did ; while, on the contrary, we, the United States, have not to this 
day made provision for civil war claims of Germans, Frenchmen, and 
especially Spaniards. 

3. Much is alleged as to the dishonest character of the citizenship of 
the claimants; most of them Spaniards of recent naturalization, few of 
whom, it is said, ever had bona fide residence in the United States. 

The minister of state has more than once alluded to this point in 
terms the more disagreeable for being founded on truth. 

He says it can be proved that most of these new-born North Ameri- 
cans were domiciled in Cuba, with their city residences and their country 
plantations there, and in the public exercise of all the rights of Span- 
iards, during the very time of their pretended residence in the United 
States, to which at most they had paid but transitory summer visits, 
and that some of them have founded on their being at school in the 
United States when boys, although after that they had lived in Cuba, 
engaged in business, and claiming and exercising all the rights of 
Spaniards. 

He concedes, however, that questions of this class ought to have been 
raised at an early day, and says the King's Government submits to the 
burden in this respect imposed upon it by the negligences and jjrocras- 
tinations of its predecessors, and therefore now acquiesces in the claims 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. Ill 

of all Spaniards who at the time of the imputed wrong were certified 
citizens of the United States. 

To conclude, the above notes are a faithful but greatly abridged 
abstract of the comments referred to, and appear to me to be as full as 
is required for information. 

I have, etc., C. Cushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Cashing. 

No. 329.] Department of State, 

Washington, March 11, 1876. 
Sir: Keferring to previous correspondence on the subject, I inclose 
herewith for your further information, a copy of a dispatch, No. 56, 
under date of the 10th ultimo, from Mr. Boker, the minister of the 
United States at St. Petersburg, relating to the Cuban difficulty with 
Spain. 

I am, sir, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Cashing. 

No. 331.] Department of State, 

Washington, March 15, 1876. 
Sir: Referring to your No. 841, under date of the 19th ultimo, relat- 
ing to the memorandum addressed by the minister of state at Madrid 
to the representatives of Spain in foreign countries on the subject of 
Cuba, I have to state that Mr. Mantilla left a copy of the memorandum 
at the Department on the 8th instant. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 332.J Department of State, 

Washington, March 15, 1876. 

Sir : Recurring to my No. 315 of the IG'th ultimo, transmitting a copy 
of two dispatches from Mr. Davis at Berlin, relating to Cuban affairs, I 
have to state that Mr. Davis has since requested that the following 
correction may be made in his No. 249. 

In the last paragraph but one, after " Petersburg, " insert "wrote the 
Government there, " so that the passage may read : " Lord Odo also added 
that the British ambassador at Petersburg wrote that the Government 
there manifested," etc. 

I will thank you to make the above correction in the copy transmitted 
to you. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. dishing. 

No. 333.] Department of State, 

Washington, March 15, 1876. 
Sir : Referring to previous correspondence on the subject, I inclose 
herewith, for your further information, a copy of a dispatch under date 
of the 15th ultimo, No. 1288, from Mr. VVashburne at Paris, relating to 
Spanish-Cuban affairs. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



112 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

Iso. 868.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, March 16, 1876. 

Sin : My TSo. 834/ of the 16th ultimo, reported to you the opening of 
the colegislative chambers of the Spanish Cortes. 

During their sessions of the first fortnight they were chiefly occupied 
with consideration and determination of the comparatively few cases of 
contested returns of members, either of the Senate or of the Congress. 

Since then the subject of debate has been the proposed message of 
response to the opening address of the King. 

In this debate leading men of the diverse factions of the opposition, 
such as the Marquis de Sardoal, Mr. Pidal, Mr. Romero Ortiz, Mr. 
Moyano, and Mr. Sagasta, have respectively said their say with more 
or less of zeal or ability, and have been answered chiefly by four of the 
ministers, Messrs. Canovas del Castillo, Martin Herrera, Calderon y 
Collantes, and Eomero Eobledo — the president of the council and the 
minister of state especially distinguishing themselves in defense of the 
acts, plans, and purposes of the Government. 

With but here and there a trivial exception, the debate has been dig 
nified in form, although most unprofitable in substance, for it has 
mainly consisted of easy exhibition of the inconsistencies, the errors 
and the crimes, the tergiversations, pronunciamientos, treasons, and 
insurrections of which all parties have heretofore been guilty, as, one 
after the other, they attained the giddy heights of political power, or 
sank into the depths of angry, impatient, and factious opposition. 

In these mutual recriminations of parties, in this general settlement 
of political account between successive governments and administra- 
tions — which has only served to show that all of them, as they rose, 
ascended on the ruins of their country, and, as they fell, left behind a 
deplorable deficit of wisdom and usefulness to the debit of each — there 
is little which would interest you sufficiently to justify the labor of 
translation. 

I annex, however, an extract from the speech of Mr. Sagasta touch- 
ing the United States, both because of its matter and of the political 
importance of the speaker, who undoubtedly, apart from the special 
weight of his position as the parliamentary leader of the Constitutional 
party, deserves to be ranked among the most practical and the most 
influential of the statesmen of Spain. 

I have, etc., C. Cushing. 



[Appendix A with No. 868. — Extract translated.— Remarks of Mr. Sagasta in the Cortes, March 15, 
1876, touching the United States.— .From the Gaceta de Madrid, March 16, 1876,] 

# * * # # * # 

As does the committee, so does the Constitutional party, desire that a frank and 
elevated policy be adopted, resting on the principle of strict neutrality, our nation 
invoking an equal right with respect to the other nations. The Government ought 
to be resolute in this, and it will then count upon the support of the Constitutional 
party in this course, provided it do not interfere in the affairs of other nations and 
do not permit other nations to interfere in ours, without, however, thereby ceasing 
to strive for the recuperation of her ancient splendor; not by means of force, but in 
common accord with other nations interested in this subject. 

It is to be hoped that, in pursuance of this policy, the settlement of our differences 
with the United States maybe speedily reached. If in the Island of Cuba such atro- 
cious crimes are committed as that of fixing a price for the assassination of our 
soldiers and volunteers, still those horrible deeds of which other civilized countries 
have given us examples have never been witnessed there. 

'Not printed. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 113 

The United States well know how difficult it is to subject to determinate rules a 
fratricidal struggle, because not long ago they themselves had such a struggle, with 
a great advantage compared with ours, since they were not farced to cross the seas in 
order to tight. Our war in the Island of Cuba has not assumed the character of a 
genuine war, but of savage brigandage (bandolerismo), and it is to be hoped that 
the United States, instead of taunting us, will try to show us their good will. 

And now that I am treating of the United States, I touch the confines of the colo- 
nial question, and I would speak of the colonial question; but I do not wish to do so 
so long as the rebellion exists there; so long as there remains one to cry, "Death to 
Spain;" and I will therefore confine myself to saying that the Government should 
have no other thought than that of saving, cost what it may, the national integrity, 
sending out to that end not only all the necessary forces, but also whatever resources 
may be demanded by the state of the island, and adopting severe measures against 
those who, forgetting that it is not allowed to them to attack the integrity of their 
country, are aiding the rebels who slay our volunteers and soldiers. 

Having made these brief observations, which I merely do in outline, I shall now 
enter upon the examination of our domestic policy. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 869.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, March 17, 1876. (Eeceived April 5.) 

Sir : I continue to receive expressions of good will from Mr. Layard 
in reference to the special questions connected with Cuba, in which our 
respective Governments have a common interest, but with complete 
silence on the general question of intervention or mediation in Cuba. 

The truth is that the European relations of Great Britain and Spain 
outweigh the matter of their relations in America. 

The general relations of the two Governments stand on the most 
equivocal premises, prolific in difficult and vexatious questions, to wit, 
old treaties dating back as far as the reign of James I, modified from 
time to time, and, what is worse, annulled by successive wars, and then 
renewed at the conclusion of peace by broad stipulations of revivor, 
covering in terms many commercial provisions which are of difficult, if 
not impossible, application in the present state of Europe. 

I annex a copy of extracts from several of these treaties on a single 
point, the " favored-nation" stipulation, by which you may see clearly 
the vague and loose condition of the existing treaty relations of the two 
Governments. 

If these stipulations are to be liberally observed, it is plain to see 
that the revenue system of Spain becomes totally and perpetually 
dependent on that of Great Britain. 

I think we in the United. States have at all times been scrupulous on 
that point, especially avoiding to concede perpetuity of stipulations 
affecting revenue. 

My own opinion has always been adverse to such stipulations, except 
in specific cases, where they involve special equivalents of reciprocal 
value. (See Attorney-General's Opinions, Vol. VI, p. 149.) 

Indeed, if these "favored nation" clauses were of definite and effect- 
ive application, it would be superfluous to enter into extended treaty 
after extended treaty, for it would suffice to make every new treaty 
consist merely of a general "favored nation" stipulation. Happily for 
us, who have spread ourselves out so much in several of our treaties, 
especially those with the petty States of Central America and some others, 
the stipulations of that uature are of limited application, just in propor- 
tion to their indefiniteness and their generality of expression. 

Meanwhile, in these loose and, many of them, obsolete stipulations, 
8 



114 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

finally revived en bloc by the treaty of August 25, 1814 (see Cantillo, 
p. 733), questions are continually springing up between Great Britain 
and Spain which lead to prolonged discussion, not always in amiable 
spirit. 

Thus, what is the forum for the trial of British subjects in Spain? 
A special juez conservador says, in effect, the treaty of 1667, which 
gives to England all the privileges enjoyed by the Hanse Towns, among 
which was a juez conservador. And yet the recent laws of Spain long 
since abolished that forum, with the apparent acquiescence of Great 
Britain. 

Again, to what taxes are British subjects liable in Spain? The royal 
order of June 18, 1875, transmitted with my No. 630, carefully dis- 
tinguished, you remember, between treaty lights in this respect and 
comity rights outside of treaty, and refuses to place Great Britain in the 
first-named class in virtue of the " favored nation " stipulation, although 
in virtue of such a stipulation it places Belgium on the footing of the 
exemptions accorded by express treaty to Germany. 

You will readily perceive what a crop of treaty questions between 
Great Britain and Spain is produced by the equivocal nature of their 
treaty relations, which apparently cover everything, but are so vague as 
to afford to either Government opportunity to deny their application to 
any specific thing in controversy. 

Spain is particularly discontented on two points: One, the heavy dif- 
ferential duty imposed by Great Britain on Spanish wines; and the 
other, the systematic prosecution of contraband from Gibraltar, the 
efforts of Spain to protect her commerce in this respect giving rise to 
frequent collisions in the bay of Algeciras, a recent example of which 
is the capture and recapture of the smuggling schooner Amalia. 

I annex a statement of the case as understood by the Spaniards. 

I might enlarge on these various points, but what has been said will 
serve to explain further my belief, heretofore expressed, that the British 
Government has too many questions of its own to discuss here to be 
ready to follow or accompany us at present in any official act for the 
pacification of Ouba. 

My conclusion in this respect, let me say, was founded on considera- 
tions which assume all possible friendliness of spirit on the part of the 
British Government, although Spaniards are not wanting who suggest 
to me that Great Britain is secretly impelled in this particular question 
toward a state of sympathy with Spain rather than the United States, 
in view of the magnitude of her own great insular or continental depend- 
encies in America. 

I have, etc., O. Oushino 



[Appendix A, No. 869.— Extracts from treaties between Spain and Great Britain.] 

Thirty-eighth article of treaty of 1667. 

It is agreed and concluded that the people and subjects of the King of Great 
Britain and of the King of Spain shall have and enjoy in the respective lands, seas, 
ports, havens, roads, and territories of the one or the other, and in all places what- 
soever, the same privileges, securities, liberties, and immunities, whether they con- 
cern their persons or trade, with all the beneficial clauses and circumstances which 
have been granted or shall be hereafter granted by either of the said Kings to the 
Most Christian King, the States General of the United Provinces, the Hanse Towns, 
or any other Kingdom or State whatsoever, in as full, ample, and beneficial manner 
as if the same were particularly mentioned and inserted in this treaty. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 115 

Second article of treaty of Utrecht, 1713, November 28-December 9. 

And as it has been agreed, as is above mentioned, concerning the rates of duties, 
so it is ordained as a general rule between their Majesties that all and every one of 
their subjects shall, in all lands and places subject to the command of their respective 
Majesties, use and enjoy at least the same privileges, liberties, and immunities con- 
cerning all imposts and duties whatsoever which relate to persons, wares, merchan- 
dise, ships, freighting, mariners, navigation, and commerce, and enjoy the same favor 
in all things (as well in the courts of justice as in all those things which relate to 
trade, or any other trade whatsoever) as the most-favored nation uses and enjoys, or 
may use or enjoy for the future, as is explained more at large in the thirty-eighth 
article of the treaty of 1667, which is specially inserted in the foregoing article. 

Ninth article of the treaty of 1713, July 9-18. 

It is further agreed and concluded as a general rule that all and singular the sub- 
jects of each Kingdom shall in all countries and places on both sides have and enjoy 
at least the same privileges and immunities as to all duties, impositions, or customs 
whatsoever relating to persons, goods, and merchandise, ships, freights, seamen, 
navigation, and commerce, and shall have the like favor in all things as the subjects 
of France, or any other foreign nation, the most favored, have, possess, and enjoy, 
or at any time hereafter may have, possess, or enjoy. 

Third article of treaty of 1715. 

After referring to duties on wool and other merchandise, the article concludes: 
"* * * And all the rights, privileges, franchises, and immunities which shall 
be granted or permitted to any nation whatever shall likewise be granted and per- 
mitted to the said subjects (of His Britannic Majesty); the same shall be granted, 
observed, and permitted to the subjects of Spain in the Kingdom of His Britannic 
Majesty." 

By the treaty of 1814 (August 25) all these previous treaties between Great Brit- 
ain and Spain are "ratified, confirmed." 



[Appendix B, No. 869. — Translation. — Extract in reference to smuggling at Gibraltar, from La 

Politica, March 16, 1876.] 

From Algeciras we receive the following: 

"The commandant of the coast-guard station at Algeciras having received confi- 
dential intelligence that the schooner Amalia was about to sail from Gibraltar under 
the English flag for the purpose of clandestinely landing her cargo on the Mediter- 
ranean coast, as she has done many times before, eluding the vigilance of the coast 
guards, he gave instructions to the cutter Invincible to take up a convenient position, 
and, in effect, on the 27th of February when the schooner sailed from Gibraltar, she 
was seized by the Invincible outside of British waters, and the captain embarked four 
seamen on her, setting sail toward the anchorage of Algeciras, the schooner being 
escorted by the cutter (escampavia), which is a Spanish vessel of war (the same as 
though she was a frigate) ; but the weather being bad, with a heavy wind, her mast 
gave way and she was not able to keep on escorting the captured schooner, where- 
upon the crew of the latter being superior in numbers, the four seamen charged with 
navigating her were overpowered by the Spanish smugglers (revolver in hand), and 
she made sail for Gibraltar, anchoring at the arsenal, and the English authorities 
took charge of the vessel, sending to jail the four seamen of the Spanish ship of war 
which had captured her. The cutter, having repaired her damages, anchored at 
Algeciras, and reported to the commandant of the coast guard, who immediately sent 
a telegram of what had occurred to the captain-general of the department of Cadiz, 
and went to Gibraltar to confer with our consul there, protesting energetically, and 
forthwith ordered the preparation of the corresponding sumario, in order to clear up 
and ascertain the facts. Our consul endeavored to procure the release of the four 
seamen detained in jail, mixed up there with brigands, and was only able to do so 
on making a deposit of 500 reals for each of them." 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 342.] Department of State, 

Washington, March 22, 1876. 
Sir: I have to acknowledge your dispatch, No. 853, marked "Confi- 
dential," relating to the attitude of the German minister at Madrid od 



116 AFFAIES IN CUBA. . 

the question of intervention of the United States in Cuba, with com- 
ments by yourself. 

I appreciate fully the difficulty and the delicacy of your position and 
your duties at Madrid, and am glad to recognize the ability with which 
you meet those duties; and after reading with interest (as 1 read all 
your dispatches) the larger part of the dispatch, but with increasing 
anxiety as I proceeded in its perusal, lest some grave mistake had been 
made in the instructions from this Department or some series of wrongs 
had been committed or permitted by this Government, I was very much 
gratified in reading the concluding part of the dispatch, from the par- 
agraph beginning with "I add that the communication of the note of 
November to other powers" to find that the instruction of November 
5 (No. 266), has in your judgment had the very effect which it had in 
view. 

In these concluding sentences you have condensed, with a force and 
power peculiar to yourself, and for which I return you my acknowledg- 
ment, the main object, so far as effect with other powers was in con- 
templation, of the instruction. I need not here repeat what you have 
heretofore been told, that there was neither desire on the part of the 
Government of war with Spain nor expectation that war was imminent. 
That war might be the eventual result of a continuance of the condition 
in which Spain was allowing the relations with this Government to 
drift was a contingency not to be ignored; and the fact to which you 
have more than once alluded as one of the causes of alarm and of sup- 
posed menace, of the collecting of a naval force at Port Royal, was, in 
the first instance, for the wintering of the fleet; and secondly, as that 
harbor was at the same time commodious, convenient, and healthful, to 
have the force together. The possibility that Spain might protract 
negotiations for the settlement of the questions which youhave been 
gradually bringing to a close, and the possibility of other events which 
the President's message sought to prevent, and which in your conclud- 
ing paragraphs you think (as I do) that he has prevented, were not 
overlooked, and may have had a remote and incidental influence in the 
selection of a single harbor for the united winter quarters of the fleet; 
but in this the inducements of the Government were precautionary, not 
minatory. 

The fact that it has attracted the attention which you report may pos- 
sibly indicate that it has not been without influence in hastening some 
of the conclusions which seem to be happily in progress of attainment, 
and may have contributed to an appreciation of the serious earnestness 
of the President and of the sincerity of his expressions with regard to 
belligerence or independence, which, as you justly remarked, have " pre- 
pared the way to confidence." It was time that Spain should recognize 
the sincerity and long endurance of this Government under unfulfilled 
promises and repeated assaults on the rights of our citizens, and it was 
time that Spain should earnestly undertake the work of repressing 
an insurrection which was becoming — which had become — a public 
nuisance. 

In the instruction, No. 266, sent to you, and communicated to other 
powers, the President had gravely and deliberately considered the 
course which he believed tended to the best interests of the country, 
and in the exercise of his constitutional powers and duty he declared it 
solemnly and earnestly. Had he contemplated or apprehended a hos- 
tile movement toward Spain he would not have left it to vague specu- 
lation, and you would have been advised of any, however ultimate or 
remote, intention in that direction. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 117 

It is a source of gratification to learn from the concluding part of the 
dispatch now acknowledged that the instruction of November 5 is 
appreciated in the sense in which it was intended, and that it meets 
your approval, as I am confident it will receive your cooperation. 

1 have also to acknowledge your dispatch No. 855, of the 28th of Feb- 
ruary, also relating to intervention with especial reference to the attitude 
of Russia. 

I am, etc, Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 877.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, March 23, 1876. (Eeceived April 10.) 

Sir : My Nos. 835, 849, 853, 855, and 869 will have communicated 
the impression received by me from intercourse with my principal col- 
leagues of the diplomatic body in reference to the possibility of our 
being backed in any way by other powers in the idea of intervention 
or mediation with Spain on the subject of Cuba. 

I reported in detail whatever could be gathered by me in this relation 
from the ministers respectively of Great Britain, Germany, Austria, 
and Russia. 

The contents of your No. 315 have now come to more than confirm 
the convictions, previously formed by me, as to the indifference, if not 
opposition, to be expected by us from all the European powers. 

1. Great Britain. — The Earl of Derby, in a carefully meditated argu- 
mentative paper under his own hand, concludes "that if nothing were 
contemplated (by the United States) beyond an amicable interposition 
having peace for its object, the time was ill chosen and the move 
premature." 

These expressions, it seems to me, do not merely involve absolute 
determination of refusal to support us, but even rather positive, if not 
rude, condemnation of the proposition. Among his premises, two are 
to be specially noted, namely: (1) Refusal to cooperate, notwithstand- 
ing his doubts of the speedy success of the Spanish Government against 
the Oarlists, and (2) citation of the corroborative opinions of Mr. Layard, 
seemingly done for the purpose of expressly contradicting the suggestion 
on my part of the favorable disposition of Mr. Layard. 

Whatever hopes may have been entertained by me in this respect, 
based on general expressions of Mr. Layard, you are well aware have 
been long since dissipated. 

I note also that Lord Derby is silent on the subject of the special 
treaty rights or duties of Great Britain in the matter of the emancipation 
in Cuba. 

And the hint of a favorable disposition on the part of France is met 
by the declaration of Lord Derby that, in the opinion of the time for 
interposition being "ill chosen" and the "move premature," the view 
of the British Government was also that of the French and German 
Governments. 

The observations of Lord Odo Russell to Mr. Davis are curious and 
suggestive. Was Lord Odo Russell ignorant on the 21st of January 
of the actual views of his own Government*? That seems impossible. 
Or was he endeavoring to sound Mr. Davis on the hypothesis of joint 
action on the part of the British and American Governments? 

2. Germany. — Mr. Davis's report of his interview with Mr. von Billow 
edifies and almost amuses me, as offering an example of skillful fence 



118 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

on the part of the latter to uphold the Spanish side of the question 
without giving umbrage to the United States, driving Mr. Davis to the 
necessity of arguing the very premises of the question on our side, 
without his having been able to extract from Mr. von Billow explicit 
information " whether any counsel had been given to Spain, and if any, 
what it was." I should have preferred the plain rebuff of the Earl of 
Derby, or even some exhibition of the famous "brutal frankness" of 
Prince Bismarck. 

For the rest, my study of the Count von Hatzfeldt enables me per- 
fectly to understand what there is behind these studied reticences of 
Mr. von Billow. 

3. Russia. — Lord Odo Russell, on information of the British ambas- 
sador at St. Petersburg, states that " all was going on very well for the 
United States there." 

What is the meaning of this statement? Are the two British ambas- 
sadors ignorant of the true state of the question at St. Petersburg as 
well as at London 1 ? Or are they in concert to deceive us? 

The Russian minister's statement to me was explicit that he was 
informed (which means, of course, instructed) that your note of Novem- 
ber 5 and the consultation of other Governments thereupon were 
intended only as means of enforcing the settlement of our personal 
reclamations at Madrid, which shows unmistakably how the question 
stands at St. Petersburg. 

4. France. — All that Mr. Hitt could extract from the Due Decazes 
consisted of evasive generalities, but in avowed opposition, however, to 
any intervention in Cuba. 

I say evasive generalities, for while the Due Decazes explicitly states, 
on the 22d of January, that the action of France will depend on the 
decision of Great Britain, but excuses his indefiniteness of explanations 
by pretended ignorance of the intentions of the Earl of Derby, the lat- 
ter, on the 25th of January, declares in effect that France had already 
signified concurrence of view with Great Britain in her definite deter- 
mination. 

In conclusion, permit me to express the hope that you will regard this 
dispatch and the previous dispatches on the same subject in the light 
in which they are intended — that is, the execution of plain duty in this 
important relation. 

I stand behind the players here and see the cards they are playing. 
It is not our game. We can do much with Spain, but it will have to be 
done on our own ground. We have no cause, in my belief, to expect 
aid from the European powers, not even from Great Britain. The 
problem rather is to work out our own policy in such way as to avoid 
obstructions on the part of those powers. 

I have, etc., O. Cushinq. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, March 29, 1876. 
Fish, Secretary, Washington: 

I have explained to Calderon the nature of your 323, and prepared 
him to receive it in the right spirit. It can not be read to him in 
English. I might explain it to him in Spanish, but with risk of loss of 
effect for you as well as for him. 

May I give him copy? 

CUSHINO. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 119 

Mr. Fish to Mr. dishing. 

[ Telegram.] 

Washington, March 29, 1876. 
Gushing, Minister, Madrid: 

If requested, you may give copy. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 886.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, March 31, 1876. (Eeceived April 18.) 

Sir : On receiving your dispatch No. 323 and reflecting on its con- 
tents, my first conclusion was to seek to prepare the minister of state 
for the communication and to ascertain in what spirit it was likely to 
be received. 

To this end it seemed to me convenient to preface by telling him what 
had been the inducement of your dispatch. 

I accordingly sought and obtained a special interview, which took 
place by appointment at the private residence of Mr. Calderon y Col- 
lantes on the morning of the 29th instant. 

I began by stating the reception of an important message from you 
to communicate to him, which had been drawn forth by what he had 
said to me on the 15th of January last, my report of which I should be 
glad to make him acquainted with in order to ascertain whether it was 
correct. 

He assented, and I then placed in his hands a Spanish translation of 
so much of my dispatch No. 777 as relates to the subject (beginning at 
p. 3 and ending at p. 10), begging him to read it aloud and to deny or 
qualify if he found occasion. 

He took the paper and read it aloud deliberately, saying repeatedly 
as he went along, "Exacto, exacto," and when he had finished, adding 
that it was a true and accurate account of what he had said at that 
interview and commending the fidelity of the report. 

He subjoined, in passing, that all such of my reports of conversation 
at the ministry as had appeared in print had been scrutinized and 
found to be correct by the respective ministers. 

I then said that you would be glad to sit by his side in person, as 
supposed in that interview, and respond to his friendly suggestion in the 
same spirit of friendship in which it was made, communicating to him 
your views of what, as "a statesman and a man of honor," you con- 
ceived to be fit to be done in Cuba in the common interest of the United 
States and Spain; and, as you could not do this in person, you desired 
to do it in writing, if it would be agreeable to him to receive a commu- 
nication of considerate advice and kindly intentioned counsel. 

He promptly replied that it would be entirely agreeable to him. 

I said that the communication was of considerable length which my 
instructions permitted me to read to him, and that this involved the 
necessity of making a translation, in which something of the delicacy 
as well as the force of expression might disappear in passing from one 
idiom to the other, and that with dependence on the ear only for means 
of appreciation. 

He then begged me to obtain leave to deliver to him a copy, which 
was the occasion of my telegram of the 30th on the subject, to which you 
have replied assenting thereto. 



120 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

He mentioned the fact of a copy of his memorandum having been 
delivered to you by Mr. Mantilla, and said that the King's Government 
was meditating to do all which that memorandum indicated, and even 
more, in the direction of good government in Cuba. 

Some reference was made to the apparent difference of opinion grow- 
ing up among the Cubans in Europe as to the policy of mere devasta- 
tion in Cuba pursued under the advice of the Cubans in New York. 

Conversation then passed to the late bad news from Mexico, and 
thence to recent similar events in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, the Argen- 
tine Confederation, and other countries of Spanish America, their 
frequent revolutions, pronunciamentos, and civil Avars, and the apparent 
incapacity of the Spanish- American Eepublics to manage republican 
institutions or to maintain domestic peace, and to the question whether 
Cuba was capable of self-government, it being agreed between us that 
the Spanish Americans inherit all the vices, but not all the virtues, of 
their parent race in Europe. 

But these points, incidental only to the matter in hand, it is unneces- 
sary for me to report at length. 

I am now having a copy made of your dispatch, to be delivered to 
the minister of state at an expected interview on the 1st of April. 
I have, etc., 

0. Gushing. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 911.1 Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, April 19, 1876. 

Sir : On the 12th instant the minister of state invited me to a special 
interview for the express purpose of conversing with me on the subject 
of your note of the 1st of March. 

He said that he had prepared and should speedily send to me a note 
in reply, in the same cordial and friendly spirit in which your note was 
written; but that he desired by anticipation to communicate to me 
orally the substance of what he proposed to say in more deliberate 
manner. 

He then took up your note and commented on its several suggestions 
seriatim substantially as in the written note annexed. 

In addition to which, some practical points were touched upon, which 
it seems to me convenient to communicate in a separate and confiden- 
tial dispatch, which will go by this or by the next mail. 
I have, etc., 

0. CUSHING. 



[Appendix B with No. 911.— Translation.] 
Mr. Calderon y Collantea to Mr. Gushing. 

Ministry of State, 
The Palace, April 16, 1876. 

Excellency: I have read and meditated upon, with the profound interest which 
its importance merits, the note which under date of the 1st of March of the present 
year your excellency was pleased to communicate to me, and to which I have the 
honor of replying. 

Before all I heg your excellency to he pleased to express to the Government, which 
you so worthily represent at this court, the satisfaction and gratefulness of that of 
His Majesty hy reason of the tone, not merely henevolent hut friendly, in which the 
instructions addressed to your excellency hy Mr. Fish are conceived. This nohle 
conduct on the part of the President constrains the Government of His Majesty to 
respond in all sincerity to the same sentiments of friendship and benevolence. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 121 

Passing now to examine the kindly suggestions of Mr. Fish relative to the actual 
situation of Cuba and to the means most adequate for putting a speedy and satisfac- 
tory end to it, I shall endeavor to give the solution in the same order as that in 
which the suggestions are presented. 

First. The Government of His Majesty is in entire conformity as regards comply- 
ing for its part with all the stipulations of the existing treaties, and giving to them 
a perfect, friendly, and liberal interpretation in all that which may be the subject 
of doubt or question. 

Second. The Government of the King likewise proposes, because it believes it 
necessary, to change in a liberal sense the regime hitherto followed in the Island of 
Cuba, not only in its administrative but also in its political part. 

Third. Not merely gradual and genuine, but rapid emancipation of the slaves, 
because the Government of His Majesty recognizes and unreservedly proclaims that 
slavery neither can nor ought to be maintained in any of its dominions, by reason of 
its being an anti-Christian institution and opposed to present civilization. 

Fourth. The Government of the King finds itself in complete accord not only as to 
increasing but as to extending to the furthest possible limit all commercial facilities, 
and causing the disappearance of all the obstacles which to-day exist, and which 
hinder the rapid and free course of commercial negotiations. 

The Government of the King ardently desires to see in the Spanish Senate and in 
the Congress of Deputies the representatives of the Island of Cuba, as those of 
Puerto Rico already are in both the colegislative bodies, enjoying in all respects 
equal rights and privileges with those elected by the Spanish Provinces. 

Even effecting the pacification of Cuba exclusively by force of arms, it would not 
be in any way inexorable toward the conquered, nor does it propose to apply to 
them the rigor of the law of victory. It will endeavor, on the contrary, to attract 
the good will of all, to unite all the good sons of Cuba, to grant them rights which 
they did not enjoy before, and to join them to the common fatherland by the gentle 
yet strong ties of gratitude and affection. 

Such, Mr. Minister, are the sentiments and the purposes of the Government of Hie 
Majesty, in perfect consonance with those which are expressed in the note of your 
excellency to which I have the honor of replying. 

But, coming to the practical point and the development of those (sentiments and 
purposes), the impartiality and uprightness of your excellency and of your Govern- 
ment, of which such striking proofs have been and are now being given, will doubt- 
less admit that not all of them can be realized at the present moment, as the Gov- 
ernment of His Majesty would sincerely desire. 

In so far as concerns the amnesty and the consequent restoration of property of 
all kinds embargoed from the insurgents and the refugees, no serious inconvenience 
stands in the way of its being conceded forthwith, provided they previously submit 
themselves to the Government of the King. 

It is materially impossible to hold elections for senators and deputies in the actual 
state of insurrection, as it has been so in Spain itself in the provinces wherein the 
civil war raged; but the Government of His Majesty contracts from henceforth the 
solemn engagement to command that they take place so soon as the island be paci- 
fied, or the insurrection be at least reduced to insignificant proportions. 

Without fear that anyone will deny it with proper grounds therefor, I am able to 
assure you that, but for the insurrection, there would not now have been for some 
time a single slave in the Island of Cuba; but at the present time, the negroes and 
mulattoes constituting one of the principal elements of the insurrection, their free- 
dom would be, even in the judgment of those most opposed to slavery, a very grave 
peril, not only for Spanish rule and for all the Spaniards and Cubans faithful to the 
metropolis, but also for the whole white race of the island. 

The Government of His Majesty, cherishing the well-grounded hope of accomplish- 
ing Avithiu a brief period the pacification of Cuba, or reducing the insurrection to 
unimportant limits, is now engaged in preparing the means of replacing, without 
injury to agriculture, slave labor by free labor, whereby all the nations which main- 
tain commerce with the Island of Cuba will be the gainers, because that commerce 
would be but poorly nourished did the soil cease to produce through lack of culti- 
vation. 

I have set forth with perfect sincerity the desires and the views of the Government 
of His Majesty, thus reciprocating, as I should, the friendship of the Government of 
the Union and its loyal purposes. I desire to know the opinion of the latter respect- 
ing the solutions and the occasion of realizing them, which I have just indicated; 
and I conclude by reiterating to your excellency my earnest wish to go on in perfect 
accord with the Government of the Great Republic in a matter wherein, when exam- 
ined with true elevation and without prejudice, there is a common and legitimate 
interest; that is to say, the peace of Cuba, and a government prudent, generous, and 
liberal in all its proceedings. 
I avail, etc., 

Fkrndo. Caideron y Collasjtes. 



122 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Cushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 914.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, April 19, 1876. 

Sir : What I have to add to the contents of my No. 911, of this date, 
consists of a few points of practical suggestion, arising out of my 
interview with the minister of state. 

Tou speak in your note of modification of existing treaties. Mr. 
Calderon y Oollantes says he is perfectly ready to act on any modifica- 
tion you may propose. Spain will receive in the best disposition any 
proposal for the amendment of the treaty of 1795 which may be pre- 
sented by the United States. 

COMMERCIAL ARRANGEMENTS. 

Mr. Calderon y Oollantes says Spain would be but too glad, either 
by treaty or by concerted legislative arrangements, to enlarge the scope 
or facilitate the prosecution of the commercial intercourse of the two 
nations. The great solicitude of Spain at this time is to cultivate her 
material interests. She invites negotiation on the subject with the 
United States. 

AMNESTY. 

Mr. Calderon y Collantes says the King's Government would cheer- 
fully grant amnesty to the rebels in Cuba. It is not actuated by the 
slightest vengefulness of spirit. Indeed, in its dealing with the Carl- 
ists, its mercifulness of temper is the subject of vehement reproach on 
the part of the opposition. But how, he says, can the Government 
force an amnesty on the negro incendiaries and assassins in Cuba? 
Can the Government restore his property unconditionally, to be used 
by him from his refuge in New York in procuring the conflagration of 
the property and the assassination of the persons of the innocent and 
helpless noncombatants of the Island of Cuba? 

Such is the dilemma he propounds to me in this relation. 

Now, what shall I say to the minister of state on these three critical 
points? 

As to the question of modification of existing treaties, or negotiat- 
ing for commercial advantages, my hands are tied by the peremptory 
tenor of your dispatches on this point, repelling all idea of treaty 
negotiation with Spain. 

But, how shall we proceed in the beneficial modification of treaties, 
or the acquisition of new commercial advantages, without a mutual 
understanding; in a word, without either treaties or agreed legislative 
enactments in the nature of treaty? 

It occurs to me that, now that the two Governments have at length 
for the first time frankly and definitely considered the text of the treaty 
of 1795, and that the question of its application has been reduced to 
its due proportions by your No. 281 of December 27, 1875, and that all 
controversy on that point is in the way of being satisfactorily termi- 
nated, you may possibly be less disinclined to enter into new treaty 
negotiations with Spain. May not that be inferred from these heads of 
your note of March 1? I hesitate, however, to act in this direction 
without specific instructions, and therefore can not take up these inti- 
mations on the part of Mr. Calderon y Collantes. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 123 

Be it remembered that Spain has never failed to treat in the most 
friendly spirit with or in behalf of the United States, as witness the 
treaties of 1779, 1783, 1795, 1802, 1819, 1834, and 1870. She thinks 
the treaties of 1795, 1819, and 1870 were eminently of this amiable 
character. 

Be it remembered also that all our troubles with Spain have been 
incidents of the delirium tremens of anarchy and revolution which 
seized upon her in 18G8, involving civil war in Cuba, in the northern 
provinces, indeed all over the peninsula. With recovery from that 
craze has come a steady course of reparation as regards the United 
States. Why should we not avail ourselves of such inviting circum- 
stances? 

In like manner my hands are tied and my lips are closed on the sub- 
ject of amnesty, which so far as concerns us involves the single question 
whether the United States, while so constantly striving to influence 
Spain, can and will do anything to influence the rebels of Spain. 

All Madrid believes that, faulty as has been the administration of 
Spain in Cuba, most of the maladministration has been the logical 
effect of the factious, ungovernable, and traitorous spirit and conduct 
of the Cubans themselves, rebellious, as all Spaniards are prone to be, 
by their hereditary national character. 

Thus it is alleged that no repressive measures would ever have been 
adopted in Cuba but for the frequent rebellions or attempted rebellions 
there in times of complete order, tranquillity, and prosperity, as in 1823, 
1829, 1837, and 1854, including the infamous acts of Narciso Lopez in 
twice recruiting armed foreign adventurers to invade the island, the 
worst of all forms of treason. 

In fine, as every American bears witness after seeing both, the 
Cubans are Spaniards, with all the faults of Spaniards in aggravated 
degree; and whereas discontent is the habit in Spain, and violence the 
ordinary manifestation of discontent — whereas in Spain opposition 
parties systematically pursue the practice of quarreling with any and 
all Governments, however well-intentioned these may be, and deliber- 
ately provoking measures of repression in order to have pretext to 
declaim against oppression and tyranny — so the Spaniards say it 
always has been in Cuba. 

However this may be, it certainly makes the blood run cold to read 
letters like that of the American lady, Mrs. Julia M. Garcia, narrating 
the sack and burning of her plantation and the murder of her servants 
by one of the negro bands of . Assuredly, indiscriminate incen- 
diarism and assassination, applied to the property and persons of inno- 
cent and peaceful persons, non combatants, is not war. 

So, in reading the manifestations of in the Bevolucion, the 

Independencia, and the Sun, and contemplating their base calumnia- 
tion of the President, yourself, and the Government of their asylum, 
and the cowardly malignity and cold-blooded atrocity of the policy of 
systematic incendiarism and assassination which constitutes their theory 
of independence in Cuba, one is prone to ask whether these men are 
not mere wild beasts, fit only to be shot down at sight to rid the world 
of such loathsome and hateful monsters. 

Indeed, the conduct of the Cubans and of their directors in JSTew 
York has had the mark of infamy indelibly stamped upon it by the 
expressions contained in the last annual message of the President. 

Oftentimes, it is true, in the history of rebellions, especially as they 
become prostrated or hopeless, the worst traits of human wickedness 
appear to become developed, as in the plan for burning or poisoning 



124 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

New York conceived by some of the Confederates, and as in the horrors 
perpetrated by the Communists of Paris. 

Spaniards, also, are among the worst of rebels. They do not stop to 
draw the line between political opposition and rebellions conspiracy, to 
estimate the morality of the means employed to gratify their feverish 
thirst for office, or to calculate the dynamic relation of the means to 
the proposed end. 

We in the United States would think it strange enough to see a dis- 
appointed candidate for a ministerial portfolio or a foreign mission under- 
take to get up a rebellion against the Government, or to invade it in 
arms at the head of a gang of foreign miscreants and ruffians recruited 
in Canada or Cuba. "Set that is the way they do things in Spain. 

In short, these men are Spaniards, in whose character the most flagi- 
tious sentiments are seen to be most prominent, while behind is a fund 
of generosity and honor. 

Their present line of action is abominable as to morality, while it is 
stupid suicide as to politics. It is abominable to burn the property and 
murder the persons of peaceful planters in Cuba in order to weaken 
Spain ; it is suicide to pursue the policy of systematically endeavoring 
ing to destroy Cuba in order to spite Spain. 

That destruction involves irreparable loss to the United States as 
well as Spain. 

But are and so bad as they seem, and as their acts 

indicate? On the face of things it is hard to see in what respect Thom- 

assen or Keith, he of the infernal machine, is a worse man than 

or . 

Still, it seems impossible to believe that they can be wholly insensi- 
ble to influences of honor and of reason. In their case, as in other 
analogous cases, it would seem that a sort of mental alienation super- 
venes to blind men to the true character of their acts. 

Are these men, then, or are they not, amenable to influences of rea- 
son and humanity, addressed to them by the United States? 

Surely, if they are not, Spain may well think it is of no use for her to 
seek to influence them by acts of gratuitous generosity, even to oblige 
the United States. 

These considerations are of the very essence of the question of 
amnesty as between the United States and Spain. 

You have touched on this point once or twice, but so lightly as to 
leave me in doubt whether it is right or proper for me to enter into the 
question with the minister of state ; which compels me to be silent at 
the very point where explicitness of conversation might efficiently 
promote the desires of the United States for the pacification of Cuba. 

Submitting these views to your better judgment, 

I have, etc., 0. Cushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Cushing. 

No. 383.] Department of State, 

Washington, June 16, 1876. 

Sir : Upon reading your No. 956 1 of the 20th of May, inclosing an 

extract from the Independencia, of New York, professing to contain a 

"programme" of the revolutionists in Cuba, with your comments as to 

the extremities to which the insurgents have proceeded, I am reminded 

'Mr. Cushing's No. 956 incloses a programme of the revolutionist junta in New 
York, and comments upon its effects in Spain. It does not seem to be responsive to 
the resolution. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 125 

of your two dispatches, Nos. 911 and 914, both dated April 19, 1876, 
informing me of the communication to the minister of state of instruc- 
tion No. 323 of the 1st of March. 

You will remember that this instruction was addressed to you because 
the minister of state was pleased to invite a frank statement concern- 
ing the precise thing which this Government would advise or wish 
Spain to do, pursuant to which intimation I frankly informed you of 
the views of this Government as to what course might be adopted with 
a view to the restoration of peace in Cuba. 

On almost every occasion heretofore, when complaints have been 
made of the damage to this country and to all countries having rela- 
tions with Cuba, growing out of the insurrection, or when friendly sug- 
gestion has been made, as in this case, substantially the same answer 
has been returned, namely, that the insurrection was about to be sup- 
pressed; and when that had happened, then, but not before, reforms 
which were admitted to be required would be inaugurated and measures 
necessary to the peace and prosperity of the island adopted. The 
insurrectionists, on the other hand, have been unwilling to rely on these 
assurances or to lay down their arms. Thus things have proceeded, 
and the insurrection is no nearer to suppression now than years ago, 
and the needed reforms as distant as some years since. 

It has been averred that certain high authorities in Spain did not at 
first object to a show of revolution or revolt in Cuba, as such a condi- 
tion of affairs gave ready excuse for increased taxation and new bur- 
dens. Of this I say nothing and express no opinion; but it seems to 
be indisputable that the determination of Spain to do nothing by way 
of reforms, nor to aid in any improvement in affairs until the insurrec- 
tion had been suppressed, has prevented its suppression and virtually 
prevented the introduction of any better state of affairs in the island. 

With, therefore, a continuation of the same policy on the part of the 
authorities of Spain as is foreshadowed by the minister of state in his 
communications to you touching my instruction of the 1st of March, and 
in other quarters, and with the determination of the insurgents, if such 
can be said to be foreshadowed in this extract from the Independeneia, 
or if the same be genuine, with the extreme views of the two parties, 
neither willing or intending to yield to the other, and with the want of 
power or ability of either to coerce the other, there seems little hope that 
anything is soon to be expected in the interest either of good government 
in Cuba or that will lead to peace and prosperity in the island. 
I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Gusliing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 1027.1 Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, July 10, 1876. 
Sir: I received some time ago a letter from the American Peace 
Union, inclosing an address to the King to propose a board of inter- 
national arbitrators to settle the little misunderstanding between the 
"nation" of Spain and the "nation" of Cuba, to which I have just now 
snatched a moment to make response. A copy of the correspondence 
is annexed. 

I have, etc, O. Gushing. 



126 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

[Inclosure 1 with No. 1027.] 

Mr. Love to Mr. Cushing. 

Philadelphia, January 19, 1876. 
Respected Friend : The Peace Society of America lias passed the resolution 
inclosed and has to request that you favor us by presenting or forwarding it to the 
court of Spain, that the proposed matter may be considered there as well as at our 
capital ana in Cuba, as we have forwarded duplicates to both places — and I believe 
President Grant favors the proposition. 

We have had this written in Spanish for Spain and Cuba, and we trust it will 
receive proper attention. 

We are well convinced that this course will be popular and profitable, and with 
the highest appreciation of your services, and thanking you in advance for the favor 
asked, 

I am, etc., Alfred H. Love, 

President of the Universal Peace Union, American Branch. 



[Inclosure 2 with No. 1027.— Translation.] 
PROPOSED ADDRESS OF THE PEACE SOCIETY TO THE KING OF SPAIN. 

At the ninth anniversary of the Society of Peace of Pennsylvania, branch of the 
Universal Peace Union, celebrated in the city of Philadelphia the 30th of November, 
1875, the following conviction was unanimously adopted, and it was ordered that it 
be sent to the King of Spain, to the President of the United States, and to the powers 
of Cuba, with the hope of its adoption by all: 

"We are convinced that the principle of national and international arbitration 
maybe made popular and appropriate for terminating all differences between nations, 
and that if the motives of disturbance between Spain and Cuba were submitted to 
a tribunal of wise and conscientious arbitrators they would be adjusted with com- 
paratively small cost and delay, to the mutual satisfaction and great benefit of both 
countries." 

Alfred H. Love, 
President of the Universal Peace Union, 
No. 215 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, United States. 

Philadelphia, January 1, 1876. 



[Inclosure 3 with No. 1027.] 
Mr. Cushing to Mr. Love. 

Madrid, July 7, 1876. 

Respected Friend: I have had under consideration your esteemed favor; and, 
cordially concurring as I do in appreciation of the laudable object you have in view — 
that is, the pacification of Cuba — and earnestly as I have myself labored in the same 
spirit on various occasions, I regret that it is not in my power to deliver to the King 
of Spain the address which you inclose, suggesting a board of international arbitra- 
tion for the settlement of the contest between him and his insurgent subjects in Cuba. 

In the first place, I have no right, as envoy and minister of the United States, to 
make any political communication to the King. That is a privilege reserved exclu- 
sively to ambassadors. To overstep the line of diplomatic rule and usage in that 
respect would not only expose me to censure, but would be prejudicial to the con- 
templated object. 

In the second place, I have no right to make official communications of this nature 
to the minister of state, with whom alone it is competent for me to treat, except on 
instructions from my Government. 

Meanwhile, the object of your proposed address to the King, as appears by docu- 
ments communicated to Congress, with which you are probably acquainted, has 
been the subject of continual correspondence here, in obedience to specific instruc- 
tions of the Department of State, which define and limit my rights and duties in 
this respect. 

For these reasons I have felt myself constrained to adopt in your case the rule of 
conduct observed in all new matters presented to me — that is, to refer the subject 
of our correspondence to the Secretary of State of the United States. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 127 

Permit me, in conclusion, to make a single observation respecting the tenor of 
your proposed address to the King of Spain, and this not in the sense of criticism, 
but of explanation. 

This address starts from the premises of the general utility of international arbi- 
tration. You will see, by glancing at the third chapter of the volume which accom- 
panies this letter, that my own advocacy of international arbitration is as earnest as 
that of the Peace Union. 

But your address proceeds to assume that Spain and the insurgent Cubans are in 
the relation of foreign nations one to another. To the contrary of this, as the last 
anuual message of the President of the United States conclusively demonstrates, 
such is not either in fact or in right the present condition of the Cubans. A seces- 
sion insurrection exists in Cuba, but not in a state to be recognized by the United 
States (or by other Powers) as an independent, or even belligerent, nationality. 

Moreover, the question which shall yield to the other, and on what terms — insur- 
gent subjects or their sovereign — the issues of a war of independence — is one of the 
questions on which arbitration is impossible. 

Could President Lincoln have entered into international arbitration with the per- 
sons in arms in the Southern States on the question of the dissolution of the Union? 
Clearly not; nor, I think, did the "Peace Union" or any other friends of peace 
advise such a course on the part of our Government. We did not regard the 
Southern States as a nation, although they had been recognized as belligerents by 
foreign powers and had infinitely higher pretensions to be considered a nation than 
the comparatively handful of insurgents in Cuba. Nor has Spain yet consented to 
regard the insurgents in Cuba as a "nation." Of course she is not likely to enter 
into an agreement with them to arbitrate the question of the secession of Cuba from 
Spain. 

Let me ask, on the other hand, what is the relation of the "Peace Union" to the 
insurgents in Cuba? Have they listened to your suggestion of an arbitration? If 
you, the friends of peace, can exert any influence in that quarter, you will be per- 
forming a great and glorious work, in the interest alike of Spain and of Cuba. 
I remain, etc., 

C. CuSHING. 



Mr. Gushing to Mr. Fish. 

No. 1029.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, July 11, 1876. 

Sir : Will you permit me to make some observations of a consolatory 
tendency in reference to the nonsuccess of your earnest efforts to melio- 
rate the condition of things in Cuba? 

1. You encounter, in the first place, the indisposition of either party 
to the contest in Cuba to listen to the counsels of wisdom and friend- 
ship. It is the very predicament described by a late writer in the 
following words: 

There are conjunctures in history in which reasoning and the attempt at persua- 
sion fail. Where opposition is irreconcilable, where each party is striving heart and 
soul for an object, which the other looks upon as ruin and ignominy to himself, there 
can be no arbitrament but force. The ruler must show his power to rule, the subject 
must show his power to win independence. 

Is not this true? Is there any example in history in which rebellions 
have yielded to reason — when either the sovereign or the rebellious 
subjects could be persuaded to cease from strife, until after the one or 
the other party had been vanquished? 

We in the United States have possessed parliamentary institutions 
for more than three centuries — not one only, as might be inferred from 
the rejoicings of the late Fourth of July. We think we are — we are — 
imbued with all the instincts of order, peace, and good government. 

Now, would we of the North have listened to any suggestion from 
abroad to desist from the effort to put down secession by force of arms? 
Would our insurgent fellow-citizens in the South have been persuaded 
to lay down their arms by any promises, assurances, or even concrete 
acts on the part of the Government of the Union ? 



128 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Again, going back to our own insurrection against Great Britain, 
would any proposition of hers, or even enacted measures for better 
administration of the colonies have influenced us to make peace? Or 
could Great Britain yield to us until defeated in all quarters, and com- 
pletely disheartened, by the combined forces of the United States, 
France, Spain, and the Netherlands'? 

With enlightened zeal you have labored thanklessly for the peace 
and welfare of Cuba and of Spain herself, and if you have not been 
able to effect all the good you desire, it is only because you have had to 
encounter impediments of moral impossibility in the nature of things. 

2. In the second place, my residence in Spain has enabled me to 
appreciate the true cause and character of maladministration in Cuba. 
It is that the governors are incapable of conducting and the governed 
equally incapable of receiving good government. They are all Spaniards 
alike, as General Prim so often said, whether you call them Peninsulars 
or Cubans. And (to say nothing of the colored population) it is not the 
best of the Spaniards, Creole or Peninsular, which constitutes the pop- 
ulation of Cuba. 

Now, has there been maladministration in Cuba? So there has been 
in Spain herself. Have there been rebellions in Cuba, guerrilla war- 
fare, burnings, sacking of towns, military executions, deportations, 
embargo of private property, banishments, suspension of suffrage, arbi- 
trary domination of captains-general? So all these things have been 
occurring in Spain. She has had naught else for more than sixty years 
but alternations betwixt anarchy and despotism. The few periods of 
comparative, but transient, tranquillity she has enjoyed during the reign 
of Queen Isabel were due to the mere usurpation of two great generals, 
Narvaez and O'Donnell, to whose administrations of the sword men look 
back now as to the halcyon days of Spain. Since the dethronement of 
Queen Isabel — that is, during the very period of the civil war in Cuba — 
there has not only been civil war in Spain, but, simultaneous therewith, 
a rapid succession of provisional and experimental governments, each 
destitute of inherent stability, and every one of which subsisted only by 
means of irresponsible dictatorships, except that of King Amadeo alone, 
who fell simply, as men say, because he was the only man in Spain scru- 
pulously faithful to his oath and obstinately adhesive to the constitution 
of the country. 

And yet, constitutionally honest as he was, his ministers betrayed 
him and assassins (not yet punished) fired on him on a bright moonlit 
evening in one of the most frequented and brilliantly lighted streets 
of Madrid. Possibly if Prim had not been assassinated in the street 
(by men, they also not yet punished), Spain might have been saved 
from her extremest days of misery, the cantonal insurrection, but that 
is doubtful, since the misfortunes of Spain and of Cuba are conditions 
of the national character, as manifested alike in Spain and in all Span- 
ish America. 

For, let me repeat, the governors and the governed, all the same in 
race, and with defects aggravated in the latter by tropical life and by 
association with slaves, are at least equally to blame for the calamities 
of Cuba. 

In fine, looking at the subject from the point of view of the interests 
of the United States, which alone is of account in the face of a civil 
contest where both parties are deaf to the counsels of friendship and to 
considerations of sympathy and humanity, it seems to me that we have 
much to lose and nothing to gain by compromising ourselves in the mat- 
ter of Cuba, it being superabundantly evident that, whether as t© 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 129 

Lopez and his companions laboring professedly to betray their country 
to a foreign nation for the promotion of slavery, or in the case of Aldama 
and his associates, laboring to betray it to the same nation for the grati- 
fication of personal resentment and ambition, they all have but one 
thought as respects us, namely, to make a cat's-paw of our Government, 
while ready to emulate, on the earliest possible opportunity, the "sub- 
lime ingratitude" of Schwartzenberg. 

I have, etc., 0. Cushing. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Gushing. 

No. 401.] Department of State, 

Washington, August 1, 1876. 
Sir: Your dispatches Nos. 1025, 1 1026/ 1027, 1028, 1 1029, 1030, 1 
1031, 1 1032, 1 1033, 1 and 1034 l have been received. 

With reference to No. 1027, inclosing a copy of the correspondence 
between the American Peace Union and yourself on the subject of a 
board of arbitration between Spain and the insurgent Cubans, I have 
to state that your course as therein set forth is approved. 
I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 



AUSTRIA. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Orth. 

No. 38, of November 15, 1875, and telegram of December 13, 1875. 
(Same as No. 756, of November 15, 1875, and telegram of December 6, 
1875, to Mr. Washburne, pp. 98, 99.) 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 75.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna,- December 14, 1875. 
Sir: This morning I received the following telegram, dated Wash- 
ington, December 13, 1875: 

Proceed as instructed in No. 38. 

Accordingly, I repaired to the office of the imperial royal ministry for 
foreign affairs to seek an interview with Count Andrassy, but learned 
from Baron Hofmann, "sections chef," or assistant secretary of foreign 
affairs, that Count Andrassy was somewhat indisposed; that he is now 
in Budapest, but is expected to return to-morrow. I informed Baron 
Hofmann that I was instructed by the President to make a confidential 
communication to the minister of foreign affairs, and he replied that I 
could, if it suited my convenience, have an interview for such purpose 
on Thursday, at 12 o'clock, with Count Andrassy, or, should the Count 
still be indisposed, then with Baron Hofmann. I shall, therefore, on 
next Thursday, as instructed, communicate "instruction No. 266 to Mr. 
Cushing, United States minister at Madrid," contained in your dispatch 
No. 38, of date November 15, 1875. 

I have, etc., Godlove S. Orth. 

9 l Not printed. 



130 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Vienna, December 16, 1875. 
Instruction communicated. Answer next week. Probably unsatis- 
factory. 

Orth. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 78.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, December 16, 1875. 

Sir : In my dispatch No. 75 of day before yesterday I stated that 
my interview with the Imperial Eoyal minister of foreign affairs was 
arranged for this day at 12 o'clock. I accordingly repaired to the 
foreign office, where I met Baron Hofmann, who informed me that Count 
Andrassy had returned from Budapest still somewhat indisposed, but 
that he was, by previous arrangement, having a consultation with the 
ambassadors from Germany and Russia with reference to the proposed 
action of the three powers in the matters connected with the insurrec- 
tion in Bosnia and Herzegovina; that these matters, in which the 
Austro-Hungarian Government had such direct and immediate interest, 
would probably occupy the entire attention of Count Andr4ssy for sev- 
eral days; that for these reasons the Count regretted very much that 
he could not receive in person the communication I was instructed by 
the President to make to his Government, and that, in order to avoid 
further delay in receiving such communication, he had authorized Baron 
Hofmann to receive the same for him. Thereupon I informed Baron 
Hofmann that the communication I was instructed by the President to 
make to the Austro-Hungarian Government had reference to the unfor- 
tunate condition of affairs now, and for several years past, existing 
between the Government of the United States and that of Spain, grow- 
ing out of the insurrection in the island of Cuba. 

That such contest had now continued between Spain and her colony 
for the period of about seven years, characterized by violations of the 
rules of civilized warfare, by pillage, by wanton destruction of prop- 
erty, and was threatening the desolation of a large and most fertile 
island, in close proximity to our own shores, and in whose peace, pros- 
perity, and commerce the people of the United States had a most 
direct and immediate interest. 

That the unhappy contest thus long waged between Spain and the 
insurrectionary forces in Cuba still continues unabated and with no 
present prospect of a termination. 

That during the years of this conflict citizens of the United States 
had frequently suffered in person and estate from the lawless acts of 
the parties engaged therein, and that the Spanish Government, after 
frequent representations on the part of the Government of the United 
States, had not been able, or willing, to compensate such citizens for 
losses incurred and damages sustained, nor could the Spanish Govern- 
ment give any reliable assurance of immunity from such acts in the 
future. 

That the Government of the United States has no ulterior or selfish 
motives in this matter, and no desire to take advantage of the dis- 
tracted internal condition of Spain, but, on the contrary, it is the ear- 
nest desire of the President that there should be "a termination of the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 131 

disastrous conflict in Cuba by the spontaneous action of Spain, or by 
the agreement of the parties thereto." 

After this preliminary statement to Baron Hofmann, I proceeded to 
read to him the instruction No. 266, of date November 5, 1875, addressed 
by the Secretary of State to Mr. Cushing, United States minister at 
Madrid. The Baron listened with marked attention to the statement 
and "instruction," taking notes of the principal points contained in 
each. 

He then remarked that, personally, he takes a lively interest in 
everything pertaining to the Government and people of the United 
States, and desired me to say to the President that the Austro-Hun- 
gariau Government felt a continuing friendship for that of the United 
States, and everything pertaining to its honor and prosperity, and that 
I should convey to the President the thanks of this Government for 
the frank manner in which he had caused to be brought to its attention 
the delicate and critical relations now existing between the Govern- 
ment of the United States and that of Spain, and expressing a sincere 
hope on the part of his Government that the friendship between the 
United States and Spain might not suffer even temporary interruption 
in consequence of the causes arising from the present unhappy state of 
affairs existing between Spain and her ancient colony. 

I thereupon ventured to suggest that it might be consistent with the 
views of the Austro-Hungarian Government, in the interest of humanity 
and of peace, and in the spirit of that good-fellowship so long existing 
between Austria and Spain, to bring to the attention of the latter 
Government the importance to her of the termination, of her own voli- 
tion, or with the concurrence of her insurgent subjects, of a contest 
already waged for seven long years, and thus far without any reason- 
able prospect of being ended by the further effusion of blood or waste 
of treasure. 

The Baron replied that from the communication I had made he felt 
that he fully comprehended the present position of the Government of 
the United States in this matter; that he should make a full brief of 
the case for the consideration of Count Andrassy and the Imperial 
and Boyal ministerial council, but should Count Andrassy desire fuller 
information he would not hesitate to apprise me and request a future 
interview for that purpose, to which I rejoined that it would afford me 
pleasure at any time to comply with Count Andrassy's wish in this 
respect. 

That, occupying a subordinate position himself, he could not under- 
take to say what might be the view of the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment in reference to my suggestion, but he might be permitted to add 
that inasmuch as the position of the Government of the United States, 
as set forth in the instruction No. 266, had been brought to the atten- 
tion of the Spanish Government by Mr. Cushing, it was not improbable 
that the Spanish Government, through its minister at Vienna, would 
also bring the matter to the attention of the Austro-Hungarian Gov- 
ernment, and using as he said, "a common expression," there are gen- 
erally "two sides to a question." That he meant, however, by this 
expression only to say that his Government might, out of deference at 
least to the Government of Spain, desire to hear from its representative 
before forming any judgment or expressing any opinion upon a matter 
so gravely affecting the future peace of both countries. 

He added further, that it was at all times a most delicate matter for 
one government to volunteer suggestions to another regarding its action, 
with reference to which the "suggesting Government" had no immedi- 



132 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

ate interest. That, as I was well aware, the Austro-Hungarian Gov- 
ernment "had its hands fall" in the present troubles on her southern 
border (alluding to Bosnia and Herzegovina), and that she might deem 
it the part of wisdom to refrain from even a suggestion in which she 
had only an interest in common with other Governments. 

That these were to be taken by me only as his own ideas, and not as 
indicating what might be the views of his Government after a more 
thorough examination of the question in all its phases, but he desired 
especially to impress me with the fact that the Austro-Hungarian Gov- 
ernment entertained for the Government of the United States the utmost 
respect and friendship, with best wishes for her continued peace with 
the other nations of the world, and a continuance in that career of pros- 
perity that has thus far distinguished her history, and that I should, 
at as early a day as practicable, be informed in writing as to the con 
elusion to which his Government should arrive in the premises. 
I have, etc., 

Godlove S. Orth. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Vienna, January 12, 1876. 
Andrassy requests copy of Cuban dispatch. Shall I comply? 

Orth. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 90.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, January 13, 1876. 

Sir: I have been waiting patiently for the reply of the Austro-Hun- 
garian Government to the note on the Cuban question, which I was 
instructed to bring to its notice, and which reply in writing was promised 
at an early day, as I advised you in my No. 78. 

On the 8th instant I received a copy of the Daily (London) Telegraph, 
in which I found a telegram sent from this city on the 4th instant, relat- 
ing to this subject, which is attached hereto. 

This telegram speaks in a tone of official inspiration, and mentions 
facts which its author could hardly have divined. My first impulse 
was to bring it to the attention of the ministry of foreign affairs, and 
learn whether it be true as stated that "the Austrian Government 
* * * will not reply to the long American dispatch, which was only 
read to the Austrian minister for foreign affairs," etc. 

Upon reflection, however, I deemed it the wiser course to await the 
further action of the ministry. 

In this connection I desire to state that Count Andrassy is still at 
Budapest in conference with the ministries of the two Governments of 
Austria and Hungary, as advised in my No. 88, and will probably 
remain there two or three weeks, as there is at present no immediate 
prospect of a settlement of the difficulties now engaging their atten- 
tion. And in addition to this, the "Eastern question" is so constantly 
engrossing his attention that it is very doubtful whether I can soon 
obtain a personal interview with Count Andrassy upon this subject. 

Hearing nothing from the Imperial and Boyal ministry on the subject 
of the Cuban note, I repaired yesterday to the foreign office and had a 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 133 

somewhat lengthy interview with Baron Hofmann. I commenced the 
interview by stating that for certain sufficient reasons the President 
would be pleased to receive an answer as promised from this (the Baron's) 
Government, with reference to the note I had the honor of reading to 
him at our last interview. The Baron replied by stating that the atten- 
tion of Count Andrassy had been, and still is, so thoroughly engrossed 
with important matters — the Eastern question and differences in Hun- 
gary — -immediately affecting his own Government that he had not been 
able as yet to consider the matter I had brought to his attention. That 
the Count was very desirous of having a copy of the Cuban note so that 
he could carefully examine it before giving any answer. To which I 
responded that my instructions merely authorized me to read it to him. 
The Baron then proceeded, stating that after our last interview he had 
an interview with the Spanish envoy, the Duke de Tetuan, on the sub- 
ject, who informed him that the Spanish Government was exceedingly 
anxious to suppress the revolt in Cuba, and was only awaiting the final 
overthrow of the Carlist insurrection to send an armament of sufficient 
strength to Cuba to restore tranquillity to the island. 

The Baron further stated that whatever might be the views of his 
Government on this question, they were not prepared to take the initiative, 
and hence had soon after my last interview entered into correspondence 
with the Governments of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia 
for the purpose of ascertaining their views and intentions, and had also 
fully communicated their action in the premises to their envoy at Wash- 
ington. That thus far they had not received any response from either 
of the Governments of Great Britain, France, or Russia, letting me 
infer that the German Government had made a response, although he 
(the Baron) did not expressly say so. 

At this point I called his attention to the telegram in the London 
Telegraph which seems to state with the positiveness of authority that 
no answer would be given by the Austrian Government. After examin- 
ing the telegram very attentively, the Baron with some warmth replied 
that it was untrue that such was the position of his Government. 
He reiterated that his Government would not take the initiative, and 
especially did they desire to know the views of Great Britain, which, 
of all European Governments (with the exception of Spain), was most 
directly and immediately interested in the Cuban question. 

Again he expressed the desire of Count Andrassy to have a copy of 
the Cuban note, when I replied that I would advise you by telegram, 
as I did soon after leaving the foreign office, of such desire, and be 
governed by your direction in the premises. 

I have, etc., Godlove Oeth. 



[Inclosure 1 in No. 90.— Extract from the Daily (London) Telegraph, Jannary 5, 1876.] 

Vienna, January 4. 
The cabinet of Madrid learned in the middle of December, from a confidential 
quarter, the contents of the circular note of the United States Government to the 
European Powers relative to Cuba. It thereupon instructed its representatives 
abroad to explain to the Governments to which they are accredited that the Cuban 
question was not one only of American but of European interest. Complications 
between America and Spain might have incalculable consequences for Europe. In 
the first place, they would encourage the Carlists to make a prolonged resistance, and 
revive the hopes of the Federalist Republicans and Socialists in Spain. The Austrian 
Government received these declarations in a friendly manner, and will not reply to 
the long American dispatch, which was only read to the Austrian minister for foreign 
affairs, and which, moreover, not only repudiates any intention of annexing Cuba, 
but in reality contains no definite conclusions. 



134 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Orth. 

(Telegram.] 

Washington, January 14, 1876. 
Orth, Minister, Vienna: 

Copies two sixty-six not furnished other Governments, nor communi- 
cated here. Vienna papers first published purport after your interview. 
Give information on any point, but prefer at present not to give copy. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 91.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, January 17, 1876. 
Sir : On Saturday morning, the 15th instant, I received from you the 
following cable telegram, which I have translated as follows : 

Copies two sixty-six not furnished other Governments nor communicated here. 
Vienna papers first published purport after your interview. Give information on 
any point, but prefer at present not to give copy. 

This afternoon I called at the foreign office, and finding Count 
Andrassy still absent at Budapest, I informed Baron Hofmann that I 
had received an answer from you and that you "preferred at present 
not to give copy" of No. 266. The Baron made no special remark fur- 
ther than to say the copy was desired by Count Andrassy rather than 
by himself. 

With reference to that portion of your telegram which says, " Vienna 
papers first published purport after your interview," I will state that 
some of the papers of this city during the first week in this month pub- 
lished extracts from some Parisian paper indicating that our Govern- 
ment had addressed a note to the several Powers in Europe on the 
subject of Cuba without giving any very distinct idea of the contents 
of such note; that on the morning of the 5th instant the Presse, of this 
city, which is understood to be in the confidence of the ministry here, 
published the following telegram from London, dated January 4— 

Router's Agency reports from New York that in the note of the Government of the 
United States addressed to the Powers relative to Cuba, the union of Cuba and 
Puerto Rico under one Spanish Governor-General is proposed — 

and on the same day it had a leading editorial, based apparently upon 
the foregoing telegram, in which, however, it alludes, at least inciden- 
tally, to the note — doubtless meaning No. 266 — and gives its views at 
length upon the Cuban question. 

This editorial assumes more importance than it otherwise would from 
the fact, as stated above, that it is said to enjoy the confidence, and 
hence may be regarded as somewhat reflecting the views, of the 
ministry. 

I attach hereto the original, as well as translations of said editorial 
and also of said telegram. 

I have, etc^ Godlove S. Orth. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 135 

[Inclo8nre 1 in No. 91.— Translation from the Presee of Wednesday, January 5, 1876.] 
NORTH AMERICA AND CUBA. 

North America labors vigorously and incessantly to make the Cuban question an 
international one, and to elevate it to the position of a burning one before the Spanish 
arms can succeed in making it disappear from the world. To-day it is announced by 
telegram from New York that the note of the Government of the United States to the 
Powers relative to Cuba proposed the union of Cuba and Puerto Rico ruader one Spanish 
governor-general. The European diplomacy, which was enlightened with the hear- 
ing of the extraordinarily long American document — a copy of the same was not 
left — might be not disagreeably astonished to learn what actually might be the 
small meaning of the long discourse. The omission of every conclusion in the docu- 
ment of Mr. Secretary Fish was until now everywhere remarked; he had hitherto 
excused the European Governments from the duty of giving an answer to the Wash- 
ington (iovernment, and the Madrid Government did not this time require, as with 
the message of President Grant, to answer with a formal memorandum. Substan- 
tially, the long and short of the American note was to the effect that the insurrection 
in Cuba must come to an end. It was careful to represent, in constantly recurring 
phrases, that no individual interest of any kind had actuated the United States, who 
positively had not the least thought of appropriating the Pearl of the Antilles. 

Here and there the idea is brought forward that the creation of a certain autonomy 
for Cuba was to be recommended, but as to a formal proposition to the Powers to 
unite Cuba and Puerto Rico under one Spanish governor-general, it is, to the best ot 
our knowledge, not mentioned. Such a proposition would not have the slightest 
prospect of success either with Spain herself or with the Powers. In the first place, 
it does not appear how such a union of the two Antilles would solve the question for 
which alone the Washington Government is desirous of interesting the Powers, nor 
how it could produce an end to the insurrection in the Island of Cuba. Then all 
European powers, without exception, would reflect twice before they would with such 
a proposition so deeply interfere in the internal affairs of a foreign nation. But as 
regards Spain herself, it is exclusively the affair of her army, in the first place, fully 
to suppress the insurrection in Cuba, and the affair of the future Cortes to durably 
regulate the relations between the colonies and the mother country. Still less than 
any one of the former Governments would that of King Alphonso permit laws to be 
dictated to it from abroad in an affair so eminently national. 

The European Powers are at the present time accurately informed what stand- 
point the Spanish Government occupies in opposition to the arguments of the Ameri- 
can Government. It was easy for the representatives of Spain abroad to reply to 
the pretense of the Washington Government that the Spanish war force would find 
it impossible to subdue the insurgents in Cuba, by producing the declarations in 
Grant's message that these insurgents were without everything which could entitle 
them to recognition as belligerents. When the insurgents to-day, after six years' 
efforts, were unable to occupy any other territory other than forests without roads, 
and unfruitful and unhealthy swamps, and not a single locality having more than 
200 inhabitants, thus it becomes manifest — and herein the Spanish diplomacy accred- 
ited to the foreign Powers successfully weakens the chief argument of the Govern- 
ment at Washington — why, according to the statistical proofs, could both the State 
revenue of Spain from Cuba, as well as the commerce of America with the Island, 
constantly and very largely increase in spite of the insurrection? On the other 
hand, Spain raises the simple question why just now as order is being firmly restored 
in the mother country, and the prospect of an early end of the Carlist war presents 
itself, and thereby the possibility is apparent of concentrating all her forces for 
suppressing the Cuban insurrection — why now the Washington Government preaches 
to the world that the insurrection in Cuba must come to an end, and why this was not 
then done when the revolution in Andalusia, the Canton insurrection in Carthagena, 
and the civil war in the north, seemed really to deprive the Madrid Government of 
the possibility of terminating the contest with Cuba. 

Moreover, the representatives of Spain abroad successfully, and in accordance 
with the instructions of their Government, called attention to the fact that in this 
affair not only a question of American but one of decidedly European interest was 
affected. Persons may estimate as they will the argument that Spain represents in 
Cuba European interests and culture; it could not be a matter of indifference to the 
European powers if the attack of America against Spain should bring a moral and 
material assistance to the Carlists and if the Spanish republicans in the undoubted 
renewal of their agitation should render it evident that the starry banner of the 
United States had been raised in hostility against Spain, not under the republic, 
but only under the monarchy. And, finally, whosoever has some historical remem- 
brance does not require any proof that a serious complication between America and 
Spain (and the latter would not hesitate at the most extreme proceedings in order 
to retain her possession) might have for Europe incalculable consequences. 



136 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Orth. 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, January 20, 1876. 
Orth, Minister, Vienna: 

May give copy two sixty-six to minister if desired. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 92.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, January 21, 1876. 
Sir: I hereby acknowledge the receipt of the following telegram, 
which I translate as follows : 

May give copy two sixty-six to minister if desired. 

As Count Andrassy desires a copy of said note, I shall, as thus 
directed, give him a copy as soon as the same can be prepared. 
I have the honor, etc., 

Godlove S. Orth. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 94.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, January 24, 1876. 
Sir : Pursuant to your cable telegram of the 20th instant, I to-day 
transmitted to the Imperial and Royal minister of foreign affairs a copy 
of instruction No. 266 to Mr. dishing. 

Herewith inclosed is a copy of my communication to Count Andrassy 
accompanying such transmission. 

I have the honor, etc., Godlove S. Orth. 



[Inclosure in No. 94.] 
Mr. Orth to Count Andrdssy. 

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United 
States of America, begs leave to remind His Excellency the Count Andrassy, minister 
of the imperial house and Imperial Royal minister for foreign aifairs, that on the 16th 
day of December, 1875, in pursuance of the instructions of the President of the 
United States, the undersigned had the honor to bring to the notice of the imperial 
and royal minister of foreign aifairs, by reading to His Excellency the Baron von 
Hofmann, in the absence from this city of His Excellency the Count Andrassy, a copy 
of the instructions of the President to his envoy extraordinary and minister pleni- 
potentiary at Madrid on the subject of the relations then and still existing between 
the United States and Spain growing out of the unfortunate situation of aifairs in 
the island of Cuba. 

At a subsequent interview with Baron von Hofmann on this subject he informed 
the undersigned of the desire of His Excellency the Count Andrassy, to be furnished 
with a copy of said instructions, with which desire the undersigned was not at lib- 
erty to comply, and so informed the Baron von Hofmann ; but the undersigned at the 
same time remarked that he would communicate with his Government and advise 
the President of the desire of His Excellency the Count Andrassy in this respect. 

The undersigned has now the honor to inform his excellency that he has had such 
communication with his Government, and he is instructed by the President to fur- 
nish to his excellency a copy of the said instructions, which copy the undersigned 
has now the honor of herewith inclosing:. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 137 

In making this communication to his excellency the undersigned is instructed hy 
the President to assure his excellency that it is the sincere and earnest desire of the 
President for tho termination of the disastrous conflict in Cuba, hy the spontaneous 
action of Spain, or by the agreement of the parties to said conflict. And the under- 
signed is further instructed to say to his excellency that, should the Government of 
His Imperial and Royal Majesty find it consistent with its views to urge upon Spain 
tho importance and necessity of either terminating or abandoning this contest, which 
now, after a continuance of seven years, has not advanced toward a prospect of suc- 
cess on either side, but which is characterized by cruelties, by violations of the rules 
of civilized modern warfare, by pillage, desolation, and wanton incendiarism, 
threatening the industry, capacity, and production of an extended and fertile coun- 
try, the President believes that the friendly expression of such views to Spain by 
the Government of His Imperial and Royal Majesty might lead that Government to a 
dispassionate consideration of the hopelessness of the contest, and tend to the earlier 
restoration of peace and happiness to Cuba, if not to the preservation of the peace 
of the world. 

The undersigned need hardly add that such a course on the part of the Govern- 
ment of His Imperial and Royal Majesty would be exceedingly gratifying to the 
United States, and, in the opinion of the President, conducive to the interests of 
every commercial nation and of humanity itself. 

The undersigned is further instructed distinctly to assure His Excellency the Count 
Andrassy that the Government of the United States is not actuated by any ulterior 
or selfish motives in this matter, nor has it any desire to take advantage of the dis- 
tracted condition of Spain, but rather to induce her of her own accord to seek an 
adjustment of the contest now existing between her and her colony. 
The undersigned embraces this opportunity, etc., 

godlove s. orth. 

Legation op the United States, 

Vienna, January 24, 1876. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 95.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, January 29, 1876. 

Sir : I was somewhat surprised this morning while reading the Lon- 
don Telegraph of the 27th instant to find in it what purported to be 
a telegram from this city of date January 26, and which I herewith 
inclose. 

The matter is probably not of sufficient importance to bring to the 
attention of the Imperial and Koyal ministry for foreign affairs, yet 1 
deem it proper to apprise you of it and to add the remark that it seems 
somewhat strange that the Imperial and Eoyal ministry for foreign 
affairs should not be more reticent with reference to interviews between 
it and foreign Governments, for I feel sure that it is only through some- 
one connected with the foreign office here that these matters are thus 
paraded in the public press. 

I have the honor, etc., Godlove S. Orth. 



[Inclosur* in No. 95.— Extract from the London Telegraph of January 27, 1876.] 

UNITED STATES AND SPAIN. 

[Reuter's telegram.] 

Vienna, January 26 (evening). 
The United States minister here having been confidentially asked by the Austrian 
foreign office to leave with it a copy of Mr. Fish's note concerning Cuba, in order 
that an answer might eventually be returned, he telegraphed to Washington for 
instructions and received a reply declining the request. It is understood that 
another note may possibly be sent at a future period. 



138 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Orth. 

No. 49.] Department of State, 

Washington, February 9, 1876. 

Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 90, under date of 
January 13, and which reached the Department on the 4th instant. 

You inclose a copy of a telegram which appeared in the London Daily 
Telegraph, sent from Vienna on the 4th ultimo, stating that the cabinet 
in Madrid had instructed its representatives abroad to make certain 
explanations to the Governments to which they were accredited, and 
that the Austrian Government would not reply to the American dis- 
patch, which had only been read to the minister for foreign affairs. 

You state that on January 12 you repaired to the ministry of foreign 
affairs and commenced the interview by stating that for certain suffi- 
cient reasons the President would be pleased to receive an answer, as 
promised, from the Austrian Government, and that later in the inter- 
view you called Baron Hofmann's attention to the telegram referred to, 
stating that no answer would be given. 

While you were instructed to promptly advise the Department of the 
result of your interview with the minister for foreign affairs, it was not 
intended that a pressure should be brought upon the minister to fur- 
nish you with a reply, especially when it was intimated that the Aus- 
trian Government was not disposed to make representations at Madrid. 

It may also be said that the language employed by you might have 
led the minister to suppose that some new instruction addressed to 
you, or some exigency made it advisable to obtain an answer. 

You were instructed to read 266, and to make certain verbal repre- 
sentations in so doing, and it was not contemplated that the reply to 
be given to such a communication would be in writing. 

It was quite competent, however, for the Austrian Government to 
reply in that form if deemed more advisable — but it does not seem 
advantageous at the present time and in view of the present situation 
of the question to press for any formal reply. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Orth. 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, February 14, 1876. 
Orth, Minister, Vienna: 

Your ninety-four received. Your instructions did not contemplate a 
written communication from you to minister, nor to press for a formal 
answer. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Orth. 

No. 50.] Department of State, 

Washington, February 14, 1876. 
Sir : Referring to your dispatches relating to instruction No. 266, 
addressed to Mr. dishing, and to your proceedings pursuant to instruc- 
tion No. 38, the Department is now in receipt of your No. 94, with 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 139 

which you forward a copy of a note addressed to the foreign office 
under date of January 24, inclosing a copy of No. 266 to the minister 
for foreign affairs. 

By instruction No. 38 you were directed to make certain oral state- 
ments in person to the minister for foreign affairs on reading 266, and 
it is now perceived that in transmitting a copy thereof you have for- 
mally repeated in the note the oral statement which you had once made 
to Baron Hofmann. 

On receipt of your telegram that a copy of 266 was desired by the 
foreign office, a reply was sent to the effect that as it had not been 
given to other Governments, it was preferred not to give a copy at that 
time, particularly so, as very shortly after your interview of December 
16 the purport thereof was telegraphed from Vienna and given to the 
public. 

Congress having called upon the President for the correspondence, 
and in response thereto No. 266 being about to be communicated, you 
were then authorized to give a copy to Count Andrassy, if still desired. 

It was expected that you would await a renewal of the expression 
by the foreign office for a copy before giving it, and it was not antici- 
pated that in delivering such copy any departure should be made from 
the personal and oral mode of communication prescribed in the original 
instruction. 

I have already suggested, under date of February 9 and in my tele- 
gram of this date, that it is not deemed advisable to ask from the foreign 
office a formal reply. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 99.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, February 16, 1876. 
Sir : I am in receipt of telegram. I shall, of course, not " press for 
formal answer." 

I have the honor, etc., 

Godlovb S. Orth. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Orth. 

No. 54.] Department of State, 

Washington, February 28, 1876. 

Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 95 under date of 
January 29, with which you inclose a copy of a telegram which appeared 
in the London Telegraph of the 27th of January, to the effect that upon 
being asked by the Austrian foreign office for a copy of dispatch 266 in 
reference to Cuba, you had requested instructions, and a reply had 
been received declining the request. 

You state your surprise that such matters should be communicated 
by the foreign office at Vienna, from whence you are assured the infor- 
mation has come. I have to say in reply that nearly every step in this 
matter taken by you at Vienna has in like manner appeared in the 
public prints in the form of telegrams, appearing to come from Vienna, 
to the London papers or to those in this country. 

At your first interview the facts with particularity immediately 
appeared in the papers, and I am quite satisfied that a telegram 



140 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

appeared, at the time a copy of 266 was asked for, stating that you had 
asked for instructions. 

This last telegram seems to complete the information. 

It would be quite proper to call the attention of the foreign office, at 
some convenient season, to the surprise which such publications have 
occasioned in this country. 

In my telegram of the 14th of January last, declining to give a copy 
of 266 at that time, and in the statement that the facts concerning the 
reading of that dispatch had been given to the public, I referred to 
the telegram concerning your first interview. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Orth to Mr. Fish. 

No. 104.] Legation of the United States, 

Vienna, February 29, 1876. 
Sir : While at the office of the imperial and royal ministry of foreign 
affiairs on yesterday, Count Andrassy remarked to me that he had read 
with much interest the copy of the Spanish note (referring to No. 266) 
which I had furnished in pursuance to instructions and inquired whether 
it was expected that he should, on behalf of his Government, present 
any reply. 

I told him the object of presenting the note to the Government of His 
Imperial and Eoyal Majesty was merely for information, and that my 
Government did not expect any reply thereto. 
I have the honor, etc., 

Godlove S. Orth. 



FRANCE. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Washburne. 1 

No. 756.] Department of State, 

Washington, November 15, 1875. 

Sir: Herewith you will receive a copy of an instruction, No. 266, 
dated the 5th day of November instant, addressed to Mr. Cushing, the 
minister of the United States at Madrid, which sets forth at length the 
considerations which have led this Government to the adoption of 
the views therein expressed concerning the condition of affairs in Cuba. 
It is believed that other powers, as well for the interests of their own 
subjects or citizens as for the sake of humanity at large, will recognize 
the justice thereof, and the necessity of the course which the President 
feels it his duty to pursue. 

You will read this instruction 266, or state orally the substance 
thereof, to the minister of foreign affairs confidentially (but will not give 
a copy thereof), and will assure him of the sincere and earnest desire of 
the President for a termination of the disastrous conflict in Cuba by the 
spontaneous action of Spain, or by the agreement of the parties thereto. 

You will further state that the Prasident is of opinion that should 
the Government to which you are accredited find it consistent with 
its views to urge upon Spain the importance and necessity of either 

1 Same to legations of the United States at Berlin, St. Petersburg, Vienna, Rome, 
and Lisbon. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 141 

terminating or abandoning this contest, which now, after a continuance 
of seven years, has not advanced toward a prospect of success on 
either side, but which is characterized by cruelties, by violations of the 
rules of civilized modern warfare, by pillage, desolation, and wanton 
incendiarism, threatening the industry, capacity, and production of an 
extended and fertile country, the friendly expression of such views to 
Spain might lead that Government to a dispassionate consideration of 
the hopelessness of the contest, and tend to the earlier restoration of 
peace and prosperity to Cuba, if not to the preservation of the peace 
of the world. 

Such a course on the part of the Government to which you are accred- 
ited would be exceedingly satisfactory to the United States, and in the 
opinion of the President conducive to the interests of every commercial 
nation, and of humanity itself. 

You will at the same time distinctly state that this Government is 
actuated by no ulterior or selfish motives, and has no desire to take 
advantage of the distracted condition of Spain, but rather to induce 
her to spontaneously seek an adjustment of this contest. 

I need not impress upon you the confidential nature of these instruc- 
tions, nor the delicate duty which is imposed upon you. 

Similar instructions have been issued to the representatives of the 
United States accredited to the principal European powers. 

You will seek an early interview with the minister of foreign affairs, 
and promptly advise me by telegraph, in cipher, of the result thereof. 
I am, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 

P. S. — Since the above instruction was prepared, a telegram 1 has 
been received from Mr. Cushing, which renders it advisable that no 
steps be taken by you to communicate instructions No. 266, as directed, 
until further instructions be sent you by telegraph. 

H. F. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Wasliburne. 1 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, December 6, 1875. 
Washbtjrne, Minister, Paris : 

Proceed as instructed in No. 756 ; message will discountenance recog- 
nition of belligerence or independence; will refer to continuance of 
struggle, and intimate that mediation or intervention by other powers 
will be an ultimate necessity unless adjustment reached; will express 
willingness to mediate; will be friendly and conciliatory in tone. 

Fish, Secretary. 

1 Mr. Cushing's telegram, dated November 16, here referred to, brought satisfactory 
assurances from the Spanish Government upon the points in dispute. It is printed 
in House Ex. Doc. No. 90, Forty-fourth Congress, first session. 

■ Reprinted from House Ex. Doc. No. 90, Forty-fourth Congress, first session. 
Same to legation of the United States at Berlin, and, under date of December 13, to 
the legations at St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Rome. 



142 AFFAIRS IN CUBA.. 

Mr. Hitt to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Paris, December 9, 1875. 
Duke Decazes wishes to consult with English Government before 
answering. Thinks Madrid Government so weak it dares not settle 
Cuban question. 

Hitt, Charge. 

Mr. Hitt to Mr. Fish. 

No. 1263.] Legation of the United States, 

Paris, December 10, 1875. 

Sir : On the morning of Tuesday the 7th instant I had the honor to 
receive your cipher telegram, addressed to Mr. Washburne, of date the 
6th, to "proceed as directed in dispatch No. 756." 

Immediately after deciphering the telegram, I went o the foreign 
office, but the Duke Decazes had gone to Versailles, being engaged in 
the debate on the Egyptian judiciary reform bill. It was expected that 
the debate would close that day, and that I could have an interview 
the next. The debate continued, however, and the Duke having to 
make his speech the next day closing the debate, which had excited a 
good deal of public interest, he desired to devote his whole attention 
to that subject. Wednesday he was therefore at Versailles, but sent 
me word that he would hurry back after the session and see me at half 
past 5 Thursday, when I accordingly had an interview with him. This 
will explain the delay. 

In this interview I stated orally the substance of your dispatch to 
Mr. Oushing accompanying your No. 756: the long-continued and 
unsatisfactory correspondence between our Government and that of 
Spain in relation to the questions growing out of the strife in Cuba; 
the embargo and confiscation of estates in Cuba belonging to our citi- 
zens and the failure to comply with the stipulations of the treaty of 
1795; the delays for now over six years to remedy this admitted injus- 
tice, the tardy orders of the home Government being disregarded by 
the colonial authorities; the trial by courts-martial of American citi- 
zens and their summary punishment, the equally unsatisfactory result, 
in fact, of correspondence with successive ministries; the failure to try 
General Burriel, who had received promotion instead of punishment; 
the nature of the war in Cuba, involving so much injury to our inter- 
ests and entailing a constant strain upon our Government in maintain- 
ing all its obligations, of which it has been scrupulously careful; the 
utter hopelessness of the war on the part of Spain, the friendly feeling 
of our Government, and its earnest and unselfish desire to see an end 
to this ruinous struggle. 

At this point I stated the substance of that part of the President's 
message which relates to this subject, as given by the cable, and then 
communicated to him the opinion of the President that if France, in 
her situation specially favorable for such an office, should see fit to 
urge in a friendly spirit upon Spain the necessity of an immediate solu- 
tion of this seven years' trouble, by either abandoning the useless 
struggle or in some way adjusting the differences with the Cubans, it 
might be received in a dispassionate spirit and lead to results which 
would obviate the increasing danger of further complications and tend 
to the preservation of peace; and that our Government would view 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 143 

such an act on the part of our ancient ally with great satisfaction. 
This is, briefly, what I stated with more detail and precision. 

The Duke Decazes replied, that while cordially desiring the end of 
the strife in Cuba, there were many embarrassments surrounding the 
proposition, and reason to apprehend that such a suggestion to Spain 
would be fruitless. He had been informed that a similar presentation 
of the case had been made to Lord Derby, and asked me if it had not 
been made in the same terms. 

I answered that I did not know that the proposition had been made 
in the same terms precisely, but I presumed so. 

The Duke proceeded: "Lord Derby, I am advised, asked for time 
before giving a categorical answer. I wish to have further communi- 
cation with the London cabinet, that there may be an understanding 
between us on the subject; and therefore I will defer any formal answer 
for the present. The question is one of a very delicate nature, and 
whatever we might wish to see done at Madrid, or that Government 
might be disposed to do ? the great obstacle to any result lies in the 
weakness (impuissance) of the Government of the young Alphonso. 
That weakness as regards this particular question arises from a general 
condition (ensemble) of affairs in Spain. Many circumstances together 
have produced such a situation that, although the Spanish Government 
might wish to take such steps as were proposed — tending to self-gov- 
ernment and emancipation in Cuba — it dare not do it. It would fall if 
it attempted a policy wbich could be used against it with the Spanish 
people. The northern provinces, disturbed by the Carlists, and Cuba 
with its insurrection, are both held with difficulty. The young King's 
Government must move with exceeding care. Besides, there is doubt 
of the power of the home Government to enforce its will. Have you 
not just told me of one of its decrees in regard to embargoed estates 
that was disregarded? " 

I replied: "That is true; but the Spanish Government is the only 
power responsible for what is done in Cuba. They do not admit that 
war exists. The question, however, is not merely what will suit the 
special interests of any one, but it concerns the preservation of the 
general peace. The United States have endured the condition of things 
I have described for seven years. Would France have been more 
patient 1 ? Is it not well for you, situated so favorably, to try in the 
interest of mankind to end a state of things, so threatening as it might 
become in the event of another Virginius affair, if you can do it by a 
friendly word?" 

The Duke resumed: " I appreciate the situation. I listened to your 
statement with the deepest attention ; but the question is grave and 
surrounded with difficulties. The young King dare not commence his 
reign with a failure (defaillance). We have suffered from the strife in 
Cuba in our interests, though less than you, and we wish it were ended. 
But if the Spanish Government allowed the Carlists a pretext to assume 
to be the champions of the preservation of the colony to Spain, it would 
increase its embarrassments. There is the recent letter of Don Carlos, 
proposing to subdue the rebellion in Cuba; the Spanish people (ces 
pauvres diables espagnols) take it for serious, and do not see the ridicu- 
lous side of it." 

The Duke asked if I was at liberty to give him a copy of your dispatch.- 
I informed him that my instructions were to read or state orally the 
contents to him. He said he would reduce our conversation to writing 
from memory, and send me a copy by his chef du cabinet for correction. 
He asked if there was not news of recent accommodation having been 



144 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

effected. I told him that the newspaper dispatch referred to from 
Madrid only professed to give the substance of a dispatch from the 
Spauish minister, assenting to our claim for a trial before civil tribunals, 
and defenders for Americans arrested in Cuba, in conformity with the 
treaty of 1795; but that twice before the Spanish Government had, in 
particular cases, promised to carry out that treaty and redress such 
wrongs; that it only concerned one of the several questions pending, 
and not the general question. 

He resumed, describing the situation of Spanish politics, but I have 
given above all that fell in direct response or reference to the proposi- 
tion I had presented. 

I have, etc., K. B,. Hitt. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Eitt. 

No. 775.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 7, 1876. 

Sir: Your No. 1263, giving the statement of your interview with the 
Duke Decazes, pursuant to the instructions contained in my No. 756, 
has been received. 

Your statements in bringing to the notice of the minister of foreign 
affairs No. 266 to Mr. Cushing were judicious and apposite, and your 
proceedings as reported are approved. 

No definite conclusion seems to have been reached by the minister of 
foreign affairs, as you report that information having reached the French 
Government in reference to the communication made to Lord Derby on 
the same question, the Duke Decazes stated that he desired an oppor- 
tunity to consult with the English Government as to the course which 
should be pursued. 

It is not known what communication, if any, has taken place between 
Duke Decazes and Lord Derby. General Schenck, however, stated in a 
telegram under date of December 2 that Lord Derby had informed him 
that while his Government was not then prepared to give a categorical 
answer as to what steps would be taken, at the same time he was will- 
ing to say that his Government was ready to cooperate with the United 
States in such way as might bring about a settlement of the troubles in 
Cuba, without bringing pressure to bear upon Spain or putting forward 
such proposals as would certainly be rejected. 

I deem it proper to inform you as to the condition of the question, and 
you will forward to the Department any information which may be 
obtained in reference thereto, and in case the minister of foreign affairs 
has communicated to you no conclusion on the part of his Government, 
you will take a suitable occasion again to delicately call his attention 
to the matter. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Hitt to Mr. Fish. 

No. 1279.] Legation of the United States, 

Paris, January 23, 1876. 
Sir : Last evening I saw the Duke Decazes a second time in regard 
to the Cuban question. I had received your dispatch No. 775 in the 
morning, and during the course of the day took occasion to ask his 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 145 

chef du cabinet when I might see the minister. The answer came at 
once that he would see me at 5 o'clock. 

In this interview I recalled his attention to the subject of our con- 
versation a month ago, and said that I did not come to ask for an 
answer to what I had then presented nor to urge it upon him again; 
but he had remarked that he desired to have an understanding with 
Lord Derby before giving a full response; I had been informed that 
Lord Derby, while not answering categorically, had signified the readi- 
ness of the English Government to cooperate with the United States 
to bring about a settlement of the Cuba*i troubles without bringing 
pressure to bear upon Spain, or making proposals certain to be rejected. 
I had therefore called, remembering the friendly spirit in which he had 
treated the subject before, to hear any suggestions or information he 
might choose to communicate. 

The Duke Decazes replied that since our former conversation he had 
given the question very serious attention. He had made note of the 
substance of my statement at that time, had ascertained that the state- 
ment presented to Lord Derby was substantially the same; had made 
similar inquiry at Vienna; also at St. Petersburg, though he had not 
as yet received an answer from the Russian minister. He had ascer- 
tained that Lord Derby was disposed to agree to any step toward a 
solution, provided it could be seen that it would produce a practical 
result, but Lord Derby feared that in the present position of affairs 
in Spain, such proposals as were suggested by the United States, if 
addressed to Spain, would be useless. Lord Lyons had recently called 
upon him (Decazes) on this subject, and there was an exchange of views 
in regard to the condition of Spain and this question of Cuba and the 
way in which it was regarded by the English Government. 

"I told him," said the Duke, "that I thought we might say some 
word to Spain which would lead to something, if it was done with due 
regard to the susceptibilities of that Government, if it was managed 
properly and with care and preceded by a manifestation of the friendly 
spirit of those offering it." 

"It is true," he continued, "the opportunity for such a suggestion is 
not striking just now. They are occupied over there in Spain with the 
elections and with the Carlist war. They have been making a greater 
effort than before to end that Carlist war. They are all in uncertainty 
about themselves, and are thinking of the elections and their results. 
How can one ask them to attempt the settlement of such a grave and 
difficult question as their relations with Cuba, and that long contest 
there, when they are uncertain whether they will be the ministers 
twenty-five days from this time? They are looking ahead with anxiety, 
and do not care to broach such a business now. Still, I think it might 
be well to make some representation in regard to this Cuban trouble 
in the way I have mentioned, say some word which would not be unac- 
ceptable, and would accord with the wishes of your Government; and 
I Avish to act in an understanding with Lord Derby. It is now two 
weeks since I offered the suggestion which I have just recited to you, 
and I have not yet received a response; but at that I am not surprised, 
for Lord Derby has been out of town and only returned the other day 
for a council, and probably has been so occupied otherwise as would 
account for the delay." 

I thanked him for the cordiality and frankness with which he dis- 
cussed the question, which was one of profound interest to the United 
States and just now engaged the attention of Congress, having been, 
as he was aware, the subject of a part of the President's message. The 
10 



146 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

English Government had had occasion to accord with our own repeat- 
edly in the discussions growing out of affairs in Cuba, and the Govern- 
ment of France had so long been friendly to the United States that we 
had no hesitation in approaching it in regard to a case which we deemed 
so manifestly just. 

He remarked: "Be assured that we have not neglected this matter. 
Although a month has passed, the considerations you offered have 
received much attention, and we recognize the character of the question. 
In all this, however, you know you have a special interest, and you look 
at the struggle in Cuba in view of the facts that urgently affect you. 
Our interests are also touched, but not so largely as yours, by that 
insurrection. European Governments do not feel so pressingly the need 
of instant action. We must consider all the circumstances, the condi- 
tion of the Spanish Government, and the probability of a result if we 
said anything just now. I wish your Government to know that we are 
sincerely interested in the matter you have presented, and anxious 
to be able to give you such an answer as will be pleasing to your 
Government." 

I have, etc., E. R. Hitt. 



Mr.Washburne to Mr. Fish. 

No. 1288.] Legation of the United States, 

Paris, February 15, 1876. 

Sir: Learning that the Duke Decazes had returned to Paris, I took 
occasion on Friday last to make an official call upon him, in order to 
pay my respects upon my return to Paris and to speak to him in rela- 
tion to several pending questions. 

I first called his attention (and this for the third time) to the subject 
of your circular letter in regard to diplomatic intercourse in China. 

He excused the long delay in answering, and promised to send a note 
on the subject in a few days. 

I then had a conversation with him touching the proposition which 1 
had made for a telegraphic treaty, and particularly in regard to a late 
communication I had received from him on the subject. I shall proba- 
bly be able to make a separate dispatch in regard to this matter before 
a long time. 

But the important part of the interview was in relation to Spanish 
affairs and to your circular, which in my absence Mr. Hitt had sub- 
mitted to him. I asked him how far he had considered the subject, and 
what I could write to my Government in reply. With great frankness 
he answered, in substance, as follows : 

I have thought of it, and am still thinking of it. This Cuhan question touches us 
also very closely — it affects our interests as it does yours. Our commerce with the 
island is now paralyzed, and the continuance of the state of things which exists there 
has been to us a source of many kinds of annoyance. We suffer from that state of 
things like you, and we would desire very much to see an end put to it. Unfortu- 
nately, it is difficult to suggest anything practicable in this respect. What could be 
said to Spain at this moment which would be of any use to you and to her? She is 
actually under so many embarrassments, and she has so many things that are the 
subjects naturally of her gravest attention that we would fear to hurt her suscepti- 
bilities unnecessarily and render the situation more embarrassing to both Govern- 
ments than it is, should we just now approach her directly on this question. I have, 
however, said a word in the matter — a discreet word. I have communicated to the 
Marquis de Molins the analysis of the conversation I had with Mr. Hitt. I made 
him that communication confidentially, and I told him : 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 147 

"I don't ask of you any answer, but think of this. There is here a grave situa- 
tion which calls for your attention. There is something to do; reflect upon it. I 
will have probably to speak again of this to you, and if you yourself bring the sub- 
ject up, so much the better." 

Winding up his statement, the Duke resumed: 

In short, I beg you to bear two things in mind : Firstly, that we are sincerely desir- 
ous to assist you and Spain in this affair; secondly, that the situation of Cuba affects 
our own interests, and that we would be quito willing to cooperate with you in 
bringing it to an end if we thought the opportunity was favorable for that. II faut 
attendre. 

The Duke Decazes is very much occupied at present in his canvass, 
being a candidate for deputy in the new assembly. He is running in 
the eighth arrondissement of Paris, in which this legation is situated; 
also in the department of Aveyron, in the southern part of France. 
He did not seem to be entirely confident of an election in either district. 
You will have the result, however, by Monday next, by telegraph. 
I have, etc., 

E. B. Washburne. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Washburne. 

No. 783.] Department of State, 

Washington, February 17, 1876. 
Str: I have received and read with attention Mr. Hitt's dispatch, 
No. 1279, under date of January 23 last, in reference to his interview 
with the Duke Decazes concerning the substance of instruction No. 266, 
addressed to Mr. Cushing. 

The dispatch is a clear and concise statement, and his proceedings, 
as detailed therein, are approved. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



GEKMANT. 
Mr. Fish to Mr. Davis. 

No. 148 of November 15, 1875. (Same as No. 756 of same date to Mr. 
Washburne, p. 1)8.) Telegram of December 6, 1875. (Same as that of 
same date to Mr. Washburne, p. 99.) 



Mr. Nicholas Fish, Charge, to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Berlin, December 7, 1875. 
Telegram of 6th received. Inclos'ire of 148 read to Mr. von Biilow. 
He thanked for information. Said he would lay it at an early day 
before Emperor and Prince Bismarck. That in the interest of peace and 
commerce Germany desired question settled, but he could only take the 
matter ad referendum. 

Fish, Ghargi. 



148 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Nicholas Fish, Charge, to Mr. Fish. 

No. 220.] Legation of the United States, 

Berlin, December S, 1875. 

Sir: I had the honor to receive your telegraphic instruction of 
December 6 at 10.30 a. m. yesterday, directing me to proceed as 
instructed in No. 148. 

As soon as the telegram could be deciphered, I called at the foreign 
office and explained to Mr. von Billow the object of my visit, and in 
order that he might more perfectly understand the views of the Presi- 
dent, I took with me instruction No. 148, and refreshed my memory 
therefrom. 

I was careful to inform him that it was believed that other powers 
would recognize, for the interests of their own citizens as well as for the 
sake of humanity, the necessity of the course which the President feels 
it his duty to pursue. I stated to him the opinion of the President that 
should this Government find it consistent with its views to urge upon 
Spain the necessity and importance of either terminating or abandoning 
the contest in Cuba, the friendly expression of such views to Spain 
might lead to the earlier restoration of peace and prosperity to Cuba, 
if not to the preservation of the peace of the world. 

I told him that such a course on the part of Germany would be 
exceedingly satisfactory to the United States, and, in the opinion of the 
President, conducive to the interests of every commercial nation, and 
of humanity. 

I distinctly stated that the Government of the United States is actu- 
ated by no ulterior or selfish motives, and has no desire to take advan- 
tage of the distracted condition of Spain, but rather to induce her to 
spontaneously seek an adjustment of this contest. 

In order to impress this upon him, I read from instruction 148 the 
paragraph relating thereto. 

I then read to him confidentially your instruction to Mr. Cushing, 
No. 266. 

As I began he checked me to inquire what the date of it was, and 
then listened attentively to the whole reading. 

At its close he thanked me for the information and said that he 
would take an early occasion to lay the matter before the Emperor and 
Prince Bismarck, and that he could only say that in the interest of 
peace and commerce Germany desired the question settled, but that he 
could only take the matter "ad referendum." 

He also told me that they had some questions of unjust treatment ot 
German subjects in Cuba, to which attention had been called in the 
Eeichstag, and that while their treaty with Spain was ambiguous, they 
would seek to protect the rights of their citizens there. 

With this my interview closed, and on leaving the room I found the 
Spanish minister waiting in the antechamber; he had been announced 
while I was reading the first portion of your instruction to Mr. Cushing. 

I inclose an account cut from the Post of the 25th November (with 
translation of the same) of the interpellation in the Eeichstag, to which 
Mr. von Biilow referred. 

I have the honor to be, sir, etc., 

Nicholas Fish. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 149 

[IncloBnre In No. 220. — Translation. Extract from German Parliamentary proceedings, the Post, 

November 25, 1875.] 

The title "Consulate at Havana 1 * being called, Deputy Mosle expresses the wish 
that the prayers for protection against contributions addressed by the German mer- 
chants resident there to the foreign office might be responded to. 

Federal Commissioner von Phillipsborn declared that the possibility of intervention 
might be judged of differently according to different interpretations of the treaty; 
the foreign office was, however, in connection with the representatives of other Gov- 
ernments, occupying itself with the question. 



Mr. Nicholas Fish, Charge, to Mr. Fish. 

No. 222.] Legation of the United States, 

Berlin, December 14, 1875. 

Sir : Since my No. 220, 1 have called twice at the foreign office to see 
if Mr. von Bulow had any information to give me in regard to the 
restoration of peace in Cuba. It was not until to-day that I succeeded 
in finding him. 

He stated to me that he had communicated the substance of your 
instruction 26G to Mr. Oushing to Prince Bismarck, as well as the 
length of the instruction would enable him to do so, and that the 
Prince had laid it before the Emperor. 

I thanked him for the information, and said that I would communi- 
cate it to you, and that I felt sure that the President would be pleased 
to know of the manner in which his views had been received. 
I have, etc., 

Nicholas Fish. 



Mr. Nicholas Fish to Mr. Fish. 

No. 224.] Legation of the United States, 

Berlin, December 17, 1875. 

Sir : Eeferring to my Nos. 220 and 222, I have the honor to inclose 
herewith translation of a telegram I sent you at 2 p. m. on the 15th 
instant. 

f have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram of the 
16th instant, which was received at 2 a. m. to-day. 

I inclose a copy and translation of the account given in the Neue 
Preussische Zeitung of the interpellation in the Reichstag, which 
appears to be fuller than the one given in the Post, though not essen- 
tially different. 

The interpellation occurred in the session of November 23. 

I have been unable to find any newspaper comments upon the sub- 
ject of the interpellation, and it does not appear to have attracted much 
attention at the time. 

I have the honor, etc., Nicholas Fish. 



Mr. Fish, Chargf, to Mr. Fish. 

[Inclosnre 1 to No. 224.— Telegram of December 15, 1875—2 p. m.] 

Two sixty-six to dishing in substance laid before Emperor by Bismarck. _ Ger- 
many desires peace, and will continue to urge necessity of tranquillity with view of 
adjustment of German grievances. 

Fish, Cliargt. 



150 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

(Inclosure 2 In No. 224. — Interpellation in regard to the consulate at Havana in German Parliament 
November 23, 1875, from the Neue Preussische Zeitung.] 

In regard to title 45 (consulate at Havana) Deputy Mosle remarks: The German 
merchants in Havana, as well as in every part of Cuba which is in the possession of 
the Spanish Government, are subjected to the war contributions, which the Spanish 
Government has imposed in consequence of the revolution, in the most exorbitant 
and, insupportable manner. Now, it is clear that in times such as exist in Cuba, in 
which the revolution demands great sacrifices on the part of the Government, those 
also should contribute who have long enjoyed the advantages of peace. The German 
merchants in Havana, however, believe that these demands have been excessive and 
that they are entitled to exemption from these war contributions under the treaty 
with Spain, and for the reason that Cuba is no longer a colony but has become a 
Spanish province. They have in consequence, if I am not in error, addressed them- 
selves to the imperial chancellor for relief from this evil. I desire on my part to ask 
the representatives of the Government if steps have been taken to relieve these com- 
plaints of the merchants. I should be much obliged if information could be given 
me on this subject. 

The Federal Plenipotentiary von Philipsborn: The complaints of Germans con- 
cerning these contributions have long since come to the knowledge of the foreign 
office. The latter at once made a close investigation of the subject, with the result 
that there arose for consideration a number of treaty provisions which are otherwise 
interpreted by the other side than by us. We could take no action alone, but only 
in conjunction with other friendly Governments concerned in like manner. To this 
is added the necessary consideration not to cause more difficulties to the Spanish 
Government at this moment than the position of things absolutely requires. The 
foreign office is, however, continually endeavoring to further the matter in the 
interests of the Germans at Havana. 

Deputy Mosle: I thank the representative of the Federal Government for the 
information, and shall hope that it may succeed in mastering these difficulties at a 
very early day. 

Deputy Kapp inquired how it happened that so important a consulate as that at 
Havana should have been unoccupied for half a year. 

Federal Plenipotentiary von Philipsborn : As is known, the last consul at Havana 
was lost on the steamship Schiller, and it has not yet been possible to definitely fill 
this consulate. The representation of the consulate for the time being is, however, 
in good hands, and the interests of the Germans at Havana are now preserved and 
protected in every direction. 

The position is approved. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Nicholas Fish. 

No. 165.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 7, 1876. 

Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your 220 and 222, dated, 
respectively, December 8 and December 14, ultimo. 

Your proceedings in communicating to Mr. von Billow instruction 
266, addressed to Mr. Cushing, as reported in your 220, and in your 
further interview, as reported in your 222, are approved. 

No information has reached the Department of any representations 
having been made by the German representative at Madrid in the sense 
indicated by Mr. von Biilow, and you will report to the Department 
any information which you may be able to obtain on that subject, and 
with reference to the exact instructions which have been issued, and as 
to any steps which have been taken at Berlin, bearing on the question. 

You will take an early occasion to express to the minister of foreign 
affairs the satisfaction of the President that the views expressed in 
instruction 266 are in some measure at least concurred in by the Gov- 
ernment of Germany, and that, appreciating the purpose in view, that 
Government was ready to instruct its representative at Madrid, as 
referred to by Mr. von Biilow. 

I am, sir, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 151 

Mr. Nicholas Fish to Mr. Fish. 

No. 242.] Legation of the United States, 

Berlin, January 10, 1876. 

Sir: In the interview which I had with Mr. von Billow to-day, and 
which I have reported to you in my No. 241, x I asked him if he had any- 
thing to communicate to me, in hope that he would state more definitely 
what this Government intends doing in regard to Spain. He said, 
without referring to the subject by name, that he had nothing new to 
communicate. 

While paying a visit at the house of the Spanish minister on Friday, 
he took occasion to turn the conversation to the affairs of his own 
country, and stated that all their efforts were being urged and strained 
for the purpose of suppressing the Carlists; that they would very 
shortly have 380,000 men in the field, and that their army would move 
to the north as soon as the winter would permit; he said that he felt 
sure of success, and that then it was the desire of his Government to 
turn all its energies to the restoration of peace in Cuba; and that then 
it desired to perform all its obligations to the United States in a spirit 
of justice, equity, and friendship. 

I answered that I knew very little of the condition of affairs in Spain, 
but that in the United States, where the duration of the insurrection 
in Cuba gave rise to many causes of vexation, we would be greatly 
pleased at seeing peace restored in Cuba, but that officially I could not 
say anything on the subject. 

I report the conversation, as the minister, Mr. Merry y Colom, seems 
to be on intimate terms with the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, 
and purported to express his views. 

I have, etc., Nicholas Fish. 



M r. Davis to Mr. Fish. 

No. 254.] Legation of the United States, 

Berlin, January 26, 1876. 

Sir: At the interview with Mr. von Biilow to-day, reported in my 
No. 255, 1 we also spoke of Cuba. I asked him if he could say to me 
what answer had been made to the German representation about the 
duration of the war. He replied that the Spanish Government had 
assured Count Hatzfeldt that the insurrection would be shortly sup- 
pressed — as soon as the Carlists should be put down — and that as soon 
as the rebellion was crushed liberal reforms would be given to Cuba. 
I told him that I had frequently before heard of such promises, and I 
asked him whether it was proposed to withhold all advances to the 
insurgents until the rebellion should be crushed. He said he believed 
it was. I said that I was very sorry to hear it, for judging from the 
past there seemed to be little probability of the speedy suppression of 
the rebellion. He said that the Spanish Government represented that 
the insurrection was confined to insignificant numbers of negroes and 
mulattoes; that no or few Cuban white persons were engaged in it, 
and that none of the white population of the island sympathized with it. 

I replied that I had no instructions on the subject, and that in what 
I was about to say I spoke my individual opinion and in no sense the 

1 Not printed. 



152 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

views of my Government. Speaking thus individually, I would say that 
I believed such representations to be incorrect. I believed almost the 
whole Creole population of the island was dissatisfied with the violent 
and arbitrary measures of Spain, and that if the Spanish troops were 
withdrawn from the island, and the persons known as peninsulars were 
left alone to deal with the insurrection, the world would soon see that 
the opposition to Spain was not confined to a few negroes and mulattoes. 
He said that the subject was full of difficulties for Germany — that their 
traders and merchants have large interests in Cuba which are suffer- 
ing, and that they would be glad to see peace restored. I learn from 
other sources that this is the case, that the tobacco merchants of 
Bremen and Hamburg have been much injured, and that they are 
pressing the Government to do something in their behalf with more 
zeal than is agreeable to the Government. 
I have, etc., 

J. O. Bancroft Davis. 



GREAT BRITAIN. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. SchenoJc. 

Fo. 805.] Department of State, 

Washington, November 5, 1875. 

Sir: Herewith you will receive a confidential copy of an instruction 
this day addressed to Mr. Cushing, the minister of the United States in 
Madrid. Such part as relates to our particular causes of complaint 
against the Spani sh authorities concerns the United States alone. Such 
part of the instruction, however, as announces to Mr. Cushing the con- 
clusions to which the President has arrived in reference to the strife 
now raging in Cuba, and as instructs him to communicate these conclu- 
sions to the Spanish Government, is believed to be not only of interest 
to the Government of Great Britain, but such as it is supposed will be 
regarded by that Government as just and necessary. 

The instruction sets forth the considerations which have led this Gov- 
ernment to the conclusions which have been reached, and it is hoped 
that the Government of Great Britain, having similar interests to pro- 
tect, and regarding this strife from a similar point of view, as well for 
the interests of its own subjects as of humanity at large, will not bo 
unwilling at least to support our position by its approval and influence. 
This being the case, the President is of opinion that it is just to the Gov- 
ernment of Great Britain to communicate in confidence these conclu- 
sions, and to suggest that, in his opinion, the expression by Great Britain 
to Spain of its approval of the view of this Government, and its influ- 
ence to induce a settlement, will tend to a more speedy adjustment and 
will more surely induce the Government of Spain, by some wise and 
conclusive measures, to render all thought or necessity of intervention 
from any quarter unnecessary. 

The Government of Great Britain may possibly, of its own accord, 
think proper, in view of its own interests, to cooperate with the United 
States in this effort to arrest a cruel war of devastation. This, how- 
ever, is a question to be raised by Her Majesty's Government. Hu- 
manity, its own great interests, and a regard for the preservation of the 
peace of the world, it is believed, will, without doubt, lead it to support 
the position which this Government has at length been forced to assume, 
and to address its representative in Madrid to that end. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 153 

Mr. dishing has further been instructed to defer his interview with 
the minister of state until you shall have communicated to this Depart- 
ment the result of your interview with Lord Derby. You will read to 
Lord Derby, in confidence, the copy of the instruction to Mr. Gushing 
(No. 26(>), inclosed herewith, and will distinctly state that this Govern- 
ment has no selfish or ulterior objects in view, and no desire to take 
advantage of the difficulties which have surrounded the Spanish 
Government. 

You will take the earliest occasion practicable to comply with this 
instruction, and will promptly communicate with the Department by 
telegraph, and in cipher, the result thereof. 

I also inclose for your information and for such use as may be advis- 
able in this interview, a copy of an instruction addressed to Mr. Gushing 
(No. 267), by which he is instructed to await further instructions from the 
Department before communicating with the minister of state, in order 
that the disposition of the British Government may be ascertained. 

I need not impress upon you the confidential nature of all of these 
instructions, and the delicate duty which is imposed upon you. 

You may say to Lord Derby, without reading to him the instruction 
last mentioned, that Mr. Gashing is instructed to withhold the presen- 
tation to the Spanish Government of the decision of the President 
until after it shall have been made known to Her Majesty's Government. 

I inclose also for your information a copy of an instruction to Mr. 
Cushing (No. 265, of the date of November 5, instant) on the subject 
of General JBurriel. * * * 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Schenck. 

[Telegram.] 

♦ 

Washington, November 19, 1875. 
Schenck, Minister, London: 

Advices from Gushing suggest delay in reading inclosure to eight 
hundred and five. You will await further instructions. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish. 

No. 830.] Legation of the United States, 

London, November 20, 1875. (Received December 6.) 
Sir: I received last evening your telegram of yesterday. 
Your No. 805 referred to in your telegram reached me early this 
morning, and would have been read to Lord Derby to-day had not your 
telegram delayed my action. 

I have, etc., Eobt. C. Schenck. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Schenck. 1 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, November 27, 1875. 
Schenck, Minister, London: 

Bead inclosure to eight hundred five as soon as opportunity will 
admit. You will explain that intervention is not contemplated as an 

1 Reprinted from House Ex. Doc. No. 90, Forty-fourth Congress, first session, tnt 
omissions supplied. 



154 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

immediate resort, but as a contingent necessity in case the contest bo 
prosecuted and satisfactory adjustment of existing griefs be not reached, 
and that we sincerely desire to avoid any rupture, and are anxious to 
maintain peace and establish our relations with Spain on a permanent 
basis of friendship. I now state further, for your own information and 
for your guidance in your interview with minister, that message will 
discountenance recognition of belligerency or independence; will allude 
to intervention as a possible necessity, but will not advise its present 
adoption. Cushing is instructed to communicate to minister without 
waiting result of your interview, but you will communicate with him 
in cipher after your interview. 

Take precaution that the purport of instruetion or of information 
above be not given through minister to press or public. 

Fish, Secretary. 



Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram .] 

London, November 30, 1875. 
Fish, Secretary, Washington: 

Have communicated confidentially and fully with Lord Derby and 
read instruction to Cushing. 
He will give me views of this Government Thursday. 

Schenok, Minister, 



Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

London, December £, 1875, 
Fish, Secretary, Washington: 

Had interview again with Lord Derby. He received telegram yester- 
day from Layard saying Cushing had delivered to Spanish Government 
your note of 5th, bat requested no definite action upon it until he could 
communicate with you. He expected you would receive yesterday or 
to-day a communication from the Spanish Government, and if that 
affords basis for settlement of grievances the President might modify 
views in message. 

Lord Derby prefers in this state of circumstances not to discuss the 
matter until the President has had opportunity of considering last com- 
munication from Spain. He has no objectiou, however, to say his Gov- 
ernment would be willing, in the interest of humanity and friendship, 
to cooperate in any way that promises to bring about a settlement of 
troubles in Cuba, but is not prepared to put any pressure on the Span- 
ish Government or to put forward proposals which he has reason to 
think it would not be inclined to accede to. Thinks Spain, as a saving 
of her dignity, might be willing to accept some interposition, in which 
case Great Britain would not object to use good offices, but not if Spain 
stands off and declines any interference. Believes Spain will certainly 
reject any proposal for her giving up Cuba, and would never yield that 
except to force, but might be induced to agree on a basis of self-govern- 
ment of the island. 

Schenck. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA, 155 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Schenck. 1 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, December 6, 1875. 
Schenck, Minister, London : 

Communication from Spanish Government, referred to in your tele- 
gram of 2d, received to-day. It is friendly in tone and is hoped will 
afford basis of adjustment of our particular grievances. 

It suggests no alteration in message upon general questions of the 
condition of Cuba and continuance of struggle. 

As indicated in my telegram of 27th, message will discountenance 
recognition of belligerence or independence; will intimate that media- 
tion or intervention by other powers will be an ultimate necessity unless 
adjustment soon reached; will express our readiness to mediate; will 
be friendly and conciliatory in tone. 

Fish, Secretary, 



Mr. Schenck, to Mr. Fish. 

No. 860.] Legation of the United States, 

London, January 27, 1876. (Eeceived February 11.) 

Sir: The text of your note of the 5th November to Mr. Cushing was 
considered of so much interest here that it was telegraphed in full by 
the cable immediately after it was communicated to Congress. It was 
printed in the London Times and in one or two other metropolitan news- 
papers on the morning of the 24th instant, with leading articles com- 
menting on the exposition thus authentically conveyed to the public of 
the actual diplomatic position and relations between the United States 
and Spain. 

I inclose of these articles three or four which may help to give you 
some idea of the outside English feeling and temper always exercising 
no little influence on the views of Her Majesty's Government. 

The Morning Post and the Pall Mall Gazette are not to be much 
regarded, for they represent that sort of Toryism whicli is given to carp- 
ing at almost everything done by our Government. But the articles in 
the Times, which are much fairer, reflect, I think, a good deal of what 
may be taken as the general tendency of British sentiment, or I may even 
say of British judgment, in relation to our complaints against Spain. 

I would attract your attention more particularly to what appeared 
in the columns of the Times yesterday. The writer could not forbear a 
flippant fling at what he characterizes as your " rhetoric," but other- 
wise the spirit in which that article is conceived and the views it pre- 
sents so nearly shadow the disposition of this Government that I am 
inclined to believe it has been in some sense officially inspired. It 
followed the next morning after an interview I had with Lord Derby; 
and in the suggestion that the representatives of friendly States might, 
without the formality of intervention, show Spanish ministers at Madrid 
it would be no discredit to grant reasonable demands, I think I see 
something of the idea which is in the mind of his lordship. 

It was my intention to give you by to-day's mail an account of what 
passed between Lord Derby and myself in the interview referred to, 
which took place on the 24th instant — two days ago. But he promised 



1 Reprinted from House Ex. Doc. No. 90, Forty-fourth Congress, first session. 



156 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

at parting to send me an informal memorandum of the views he 
expressed, so that I might report his words with perfect accuracy ; and 
he has not yet furnished me with that memorandum. 

1 shall communicate the substance of the conversation by the mail 
of Saturday. 

I have, etc., Robt. C. Schenck:. 



[Inclosure 1 in *Xo. 860.J 
Editorial, London Times of January 24, 1876. 

A long and severe criticism of Spanish policy in Cuba, contained in the American 
note of November last, was laid before the House of Representatives at Washington 
on Friday. Our readers are enabled to peruse these interesting documents in full, 
by the aid of the Atlantic cable, this morning, though they were only published in 
the United States on Saturday. Mr. Fish's dispatches to Mr. Caleb Cushing are 
unsparing in their condemnation of Spain, and are weighted with menaces directed 
against Spanish misdoing. But the indignation and reproaches of Mr. Fish have 
not been provoked only by the Madrid Government, and do not fall upon that Gov- 
ernment alone. If it were merely administrative recklessness or political blunder- 
ing that had been assailed the danger would be less, and some way out of the 
difficulty would at least be visible. But we know that the least justifiable acts of 
the Madrid Government, those most likely to provoke a collision with the United 
States, have fallen short of rather than gone beyond the arrogance of the national 
spirit. Spain is arraigned on as many charges as were solemnly paraded against 
George III in the Declaration of Independence, and each charge is pressed home 
with a vigor of rhetoric to which few parallels can be found in diplomatic history. 

Yet, on the whole it must be allowed that Mr. Fish's able argument has a solid basis 
of justice, and that his conclusion is tempered with unexpected moderation. Sum- 
ming up the general and special grievances relating to Cuba that the United States 
have alleged against Spain, Mr. Fish raises questions so serious as these : " How long 
this condition of things can or should be allowed to exist," and "whether a point 
has not been reached where longer endurance ceases to be possible." This ominous 
estimate of the relations between Spain and the United States is fortunately modified 
by the remedy to which, as it seems, the Washington Government are ready, at all 
events in the first instance, to resort. A copy of the American note was simultane- 
ously transmitted to the capitals of the six European powers, and General Schenck 
was instructed to make a special communication to Lord Derby, suggesting a con- 
joint or, at least, a concurrent remonstrance and, as a " contingent necessity," a 
conjoint intervention for the restoration of peace in Cuba. 

This remarkable correspondence can hardly fail to excite American politicians, 
not because there is likely to be any difference of opinion in the United States as to 
the iniquities of Spain, but because the policy of inviting the cooperation of the 
European powers is a bold departure from the political traditions of the United 
States. The invitation has not been addressed to Great Britain alone, but also to 
the Governments of France and Italy, and to the three Empires. This is manifestly 
an abandonment of the "Monroe doctrine" which has so long controlled American 
policy, and has disconnected it, at all events in theory, from the general web of 
political interests throughout the civilized world. To exclude from the American 
continent not only every advance by annexation or colonization of the monarchical 
powers of Europe, but every direct influence of those Governments for good or evil, 
was in substance the political dogma which takes its name from President Monroe. 
This monstrous pretension at the time when the Democratic party and the slave 
power were in close alliance had nearly assumed an aggressive form, and if events 
had not checked and rebuked it, would probably have tempted the Union into a 
ruinous filibustering policy. 

The civil war prevented the United States from actively asserting the Monroe doc- 
trine, though the intervention of France, England, and Spain in the affairs of Mex- 
ico excited vehement protests on the other side of the Atlantic. But Mr. Fish's 
invitation to the European powers, recognizing, as it does, the fact that the nations 
of Europe have interests to watch and defend on the American continent, mark very 
distinctly the progress of the people of the United States in political good sense. 
It is sheer folly for any country, however powerful and however confident in its 
destiny, to take upon itself to wall off half the world, and say to the commonwealth 
of nations, "You have nothing to do with all on this side." The claim is as inad- 
missible as that of the Holy See to partition the unknown lands of the East and the 
West between Spain and Portugal. The premises of the argument on which the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 157 

Monroe doctrine is based .are unsound. It is not true that the nations of Europe, 
whom that doctrine would restrain from any interference in American aifairs, have 
not a great deal to do directly with America. England and Spain, France and Hol- 
land, have their colonies on the mainland or in the Central Archipelago. 

But, setting aside the fact that many of them are really thus American as well as 
European powers, they are all of them closely interested in the prosperity of the 
American communities through their commerce. But commerce even is only one of 
many bonds which are continually multiplying the relations of human societies. It 
is vain to think that any part of the work of the world can be isolated, as some 
American politicians labored to isolate the development of their continent. If it 
were possible to effect this, the injury to human progress would be incalculable, but 
a man might as well measure a square mile of the ocean and protest that it was his 
private property and that none of the unappropriated waves should presume to 
trespass upon it. 

While, however, we can not refrain from expressing our satisfaction at the im- 
provement of political thought in the United States upon this subject, and while we 
are sure that Mr. Fish's invitation will be courteously answered by Lord Derby and 
by the foreign ministers of the other European powers, it is not obvious that it is 
incumbent upon us to interfere in the dispute between Spain and her revolted colo- 
nists. If we choose to take the risks and responsibilities, we should, no doubt, be 
justified in intervening for the sake of humanity; but it is not the business of this 
country, nor, for that matter, any other, to play the knight-errant among nations. 
It is unlikely that we shall go beyond advice, if we go so far, unless we have suf- 
fered a wrong so serious as to touch the national honor or interests, and have been 
denied redress. We must confess it is for the American people to decide whether 
they have been injured and insulted so that "endurance is no longer possible." 

The catalogue of offenses committed by Spain which Mr. Fish has elaborated in 
his dispatch is formidable in its appearance, and no doubt most of its particular 
charges can be proved. Some of them, as the delay in executing the stipulations of 
the Virginius treaty, the embargo and confiscation of property of American citizens, 
and their irregular and unjust treatment by Spanish military tribunals in Cuba, are 
apparently admitted by the Spanish Government. Others, as, for instance, the injury 
to American commerce, are open to question, and have, indeed, been keenly questioned 
in the United States. Others again, such as the cruelty and inhumanity of the war are 
no doubt to be deplored, but if repressed by foreign intervention must show some 
distinct menace of danger to the intervening power. On the whole, the grounds of 
complaint, so far as they are well founded, have exclusive reference to the United 
States and Spain, and third parties can not with any prospect of international 
advantage take part in the negotiations. The aggrieved and the offending powers 
must patch up their differences for themselves; for though Spain may be vexed at 
being rated and the United States may use harsh threats, the risk or loss if the 
disputants should try to settle the quarrel by force is too serious to be rashly 
incurred. 

It is possible, however, that the European powers might help to promote a com- 
promise which, while saving the honor of Spain, would put an end to the Cuban 
difficulty. The Anti-Slavery Society about a fortnight ago addressed a memorial 
to Lord Derby, in which it was asserted that the Spanish Government was willing 
to make great changes in the position of Cuba, giving the island the right of a self- 
governing colony, such as Canada or New Zealand, in the British Empire, but on 
condition that slavery might be retained. The Anti-Slavery Society protested 
against any sanction being given by the British Government to the latter stipulation, 
which, it was alleged, the United States Government had determined to reject. 

It is noticeable that in Mr. Fish's note the example of the relation between Great 
Britain and her colonies is held up for approval and contrasted with the old despotic 
colonial system of Spain. If, then, the two Governments are agreed as to the end, 
there ought to be little difficulty in devising the means of execution. The theoret- 
ical question of slavery need occasion little controversy. Cuba with a practicaUy 
independent legislature would soon find itself obliged to abolish the "peculiar insti- 
tution." The island in all probability would be badly governed, but, at any rate, a 
hopeless, purposeless, fruitless war would be ended, Spain would be freed from a 
heavy burden without loss of honor, and the Pearl of the Antilles would be able to 
develop in peace her magnificent natural resources. 



[Inclosure 2, in No. 860.] 
Editorial London Morning Post, January 24, 1S76. 

The precise attitude of the American Government towards Spain in regard to the 
Hispano-Cuban affair is shown in the correspondence published at Washington. 

It appears that on the 5th of November Mr. Fish sent a note to the United States 
minister at Madrid setting forth the views and demands of the Government on the 



158 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

subject. There are reiterated protestations of friendliness toward Spain in both the 
note and observations of the minister in presenting it. If the action of America is 
friendly in this matter, Spain may well exclaim, "Defend me from my friends." Cer- 
tainly the American idea of friendliness is sufficiently strange. Under any circum- 
stances it would have been curious friendliness to have seut a communication of the 
kind ; but to choose the moment of Spain's greatest trial and difficulty to send it 
was alike unusual and indefensible. 

Let us see, however, what it is that America complains of and demands. Mr. 
Fish starts by making an admission that might have suggested to him the propriety 
of doing nothing to embarrass Spain; says that "the war on the part of the insurgents 
is oue of pillage and destruction, which the United States are most interested in 
stopping." Is not Spain far more interested than America in stopping such a war? 
The " pillage and destruction," spoken of are much more injurious to Spain than to 
the United States, and as it is the insurgents that are giving this character to the 
war, it would be more fitting to seek to discourage and embarrass them than the 
Spaniards. The complaint is then preferred that Spain has "rejected all suggestions 
for reform, mediation, or reconciliation." What would America have said if Spain 
or any other country had offered to intervene between her and her own revolted 
provinces? Would she not have rejected the suggestion as lowering to her dignity 
and detrimental to her interests and authority? No one knowing America could, 
doubt as to the answer that would have been given in such a case; yet here 
is America making formal complaints of her proffered interference having been 
neglected. 

As usual, it is one law for America and another for the rest of the world. Mr. Fish 
then remarks that "the violation of treaty obligations" by Spain and "her unwill- 
ingness to afford redress" leads the American Government to ask if Spain's conduct 
is " any longer to be endured." Here, it will be observed, the American Government 
makes no distinction between a failure to carry on the due administration of a coun- 
try, owing to sad misfortunes and crushing difficulties, and a willful "violation of 
treaty obligations" and an "unwillingness to afford redress." But, of course, the 
American Government is perfectly well aware that the Cuban difficulty is nothing as 
compared to the difficulty in Spain itself, and that the Cuban difficulty has existed 
so long solely on account of that other. America is aware, also, of the immense 
exertions and sacrifices made by Spain to overcome her various difficulties ; and yet, 
just as Spain is on the point of directing all her force, so painfully accumulated, 
against the root of the whole evil, in steps the United States to distract her atten- 
tion and compel a division of her force and resources in respect to a minor matter 
that would have been settled, and to much better effect, in its turn. 

This is President Grant's idea of judicious and friendly action. Mr. Fish then 
goes on to tell Spain that while she insists that there is no war, she claims the rights 
of war, and that this can not continue. Even if this were strictly correct, would it 
lie in America's mouth to bring the charge? "Mutato nomine de te fabula narra- 
tur," is a proverb that applies exactly to this case. Mr. Fish then alludes to the 
precise claims that his Government has to make in the shape of the restoration of 
embargoed estates and the trial of American citizens ; and as Spain at once agreed to 
do all that she could in the matter, America may have had some cause for complaint. 
But even so, would it not have been in better taste and equally effective if America 
had proceeded gently and really kindly in the matter, and had avoided a bullying 
tone and attitude toward a Government almost at its wit's end from a concatenation 
of trials and troubles? The United States foreign minister then proceeds to lecture 
Spain on "the interests of humanity," the treatment of her colonies, and slavery. 

He seems to forget that probably America would to this day be exhibiting herself 
as of old the inhumanity of slavery but for the accident of the revolt of the Southern 
provinces. The way in which slavery came to be abolished in America must be looked 
to as well as the mere fact of the abolition. America is hardly the country to lecture 
another on the subject of slavery. Anyhow, America might have waited until after 
the suppression of the pillaging and destructive insurrection, until the civil war in 
Spain had been ended, and until the King and Government of Spain had had a fair 
opportunity of dealing with the question of the colonies, before lecturing and advis- 
ing on the matter. The note winds up with the hope on the part of the President 
that " Spain may secure peace, otherwise he feels that it may become the duty of 
other Governments to interfere." On this point, Spain can reply that she is straining 
every nerve to secure peace ; that foreign intervention does but encourage the rebels ; 
that the action of the American Government has driven her to divert forces and 
resources t» Cuba that ought to have been employed in crushing the Carlists, and 
that America has no commission to speak for " other Governments." 

Such being the character of the note from the American to the Spanish Govern- 
ment, what are we to think of the injunction to Mr. dishing to "assure Spain of the 
friendly disposition of the United States, which have no selfish object in view, and 
are moved solely by the necessity for self-preservation and the interests not only of 
humanity but of Spain herself." This is the friendship of the wolf to the lamb. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 159 

Luckily the -wolf has got no teeth ; America has neither army nor navy worth men- 
tioning, and she can not even deal with her red Indians, who afford her a held for 
the practicing of the "humanity" that she would preach toothers. America is good 
enough to inform Spain that she has no selfish motive, but " qui s'excuse s'accuse," 
why speak of the matter? Lastly, America tells Spain that intervention is not con- 
templated as an " immediate result, but only as a contingent on failure of other 
efforts." This is very kind of America; but people, interpreting for themselves her 
pettifogging selfishness, will be apt to reflect that without the permission and aid of 
" other Governments," America could not intervene at all, and that the " other Gov- 
ernments " will avoid hampering the hands and weakening the efforts of Spain at 
the very moment when she is in all sincerity, honesty, and diligence striving by 
every means to reestablish peace and order in her dominions both at home and 
abroad. 



[Inclosure 3 in No. 860.] 
Editorial from London Pall Mall Gazette, January 25, 1S76. 

THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA. 

The note sent by Mr. Fish to Mr. Cushing for presentation to the Spanish Govern- 
ment is a singular combination of reasonable complaint and unreasonable declamation. 
The Government of the United States are entirely within their right in pointing out 
to Spain the inconvenience caused to American citizens by the civil war in Cuba 
and in warning her that unless redress can be obtained for the past injuries and 
some security provided against their recurrence they may be obliged to redress their 
own grievances by their own hands. No power can be expected to endure the unpro- 
voked seizure of property legally possessed by its subjects, or the banishment of 
them without trial. There is no need in this case to consider whether the charges 
are well founded, because the Spanish Government admits that they are substan- 
tially true. In his telegram of the 4th of December last Mr. Cushing reports that 
the minister of state admits the American grievances, " is opposed on principle to 
the sequestration of the property of foreigners, condemns the delay of redress, and 
will take up and promptly settle each case." 

If Mr. Cushing's remonstrances had gone no further than the ground covered by 
this reply, the question might be regarded as disposed of. That Spain can insure the 
United States from the annoyances which war necessarily inflicts upon mutual neigh- 
bors is impossible; but if she is in earnest in reducing these annoyances to a mini- 
mum she can greatly soften the legitimate irritation which now exists in America. 
But Mr. Fish's dispatch is much more comprehensive than the minister of state's reply. 
The sufferings of American citizens are thrown into comparative insignificance by 
the side of those higher considerations which Mr. Fish invokes. When the civil war 
broke out in the United States the Federal Government treated the belief expressed 
by individual Englishmen that the seceding States would eventually establish their 
independence as something not far short of an insult, for which the British Govern- 
ment ought to be held responsible. The Executive of the United States sees no harm 
in doing officially what it blamed Englishmen for doing in their private capacity. 
"More than five years since," writes Mr. Fish, "the firm conviction of the President 
was announced that whatever might be the vicissitudes of the struggle, and what- 
ever efforts might be put forth by the Spanish power in Cuba, no doubt could be 
entertained that the final issue of the conflict would be to break the bonds which 
attached Cuba as a colony to Spain." 

General Grant's convictions are his own property, and if he had expressed them as 
General Grant Spain would at most have had to complain of a violation of interna- 
tional decorum. But when the President of the United States convictions on the 
issue of a civil war are announced in formal dispatches they assume in some respects 
the character of active forces. If Spain had been strong enough she would have 
been perfectly justified in warning the United States that they must take their 
choice between active intervention or complete abstention. Nothing short of active 
intervention can be more unlike complete abstention than the attitude of a Govern- 
ment which cheers the Cuban insurgents with predictions that they must certainly 
succeed. Great powers do not love to see themselves proved false prophets; and it 
can hardly be questioned that one at least of the causes which have made the sup- 
pression of this insurrection so difficult has been the belief of its authors that in the 
last extremity President Grant would make good his words and help the Cuban 
rebels "to assume independence and a right of self-control which natural rights and 
the spirit of the age accord to them." 



160 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Of course, Spain had abundant reason for not taking up the quarrel : but nrhat can 
be said of the diplomacy which revives the recollection of an insult offered in a 
dispatch the ostensible object of which is to obtain redress for injuries sustained! 
Either Mr. Fish is a singularly blundering workman, or at the time of writing his 
note of the 5th of November he had some other end in view than the mere redress 
of grievances, which is all that he explicitly demands. When it is remembered that 
the substance of the dispatch was communicated to the American newspapers on 
the eve of the November elections, and that the subject thus suddenly brought to 
the front has since been allowed to drop out of notice, it is not an unnatural infer- 
ence that the effect of the note on the American electors was more in Mr. Fish's 
thoughts than its effect on the Spanish Government. 

The result has been that the American electors have shown themselves wiser than 
their guides. Whatever force there may prove to be in the plea that General Grant 
must be elected President a third time in order to carry on a war with the Vatican, 
there is seemingly no popular conviction that it is worth while to provoke a war with 
Spain in order to overcome the prejudice against a third term. It does not indeed 
require any keen political acumen to detect the difficulties which surround both the 
alternatives suggested in Mr. Fish's dispatch. It is a cheap exercise of international 
officiousness to hope that Spain may spontaneously adopt measures for the organiza- 
tion of a stable and satisfactory system of government in Cuba, but if Mr. Fish had 
to state in words what the measures in question should be, the impossibility of fram- 
ing them would be at once apparent. If Spain succeeds in putting down the insur- 
rection, a stable government of a certain kind may be established. If the United 
States go to war and annex Cuba, a stable government of a certain kind may be 
established. 

But to talk of a stable government in an island in which the passions excited by 
quarrels of race, of color, of social position, have raged with scarcely any restriction 
for more than five years, while proclaiming in the same breath the impropriety of 
these passions being subdued by the haud of any external power, is to use words 
which have no meaning. The concession of independence to Cuba might mean 
peace as between the mother country and her emancipated colony, but it would not 
mean peace in Cuba itself. On the contrary, it would only mean war, renewed with 
greater determination, and conducted with greater fierceness, between the insur- 
gents and that part of the population which, as Mr. Fish very truly puts it, "has 
sustained and upheld, if it has not controlled, successive governors-general." How 
this conflict would end we do not pretend to say, but it is safe to predict that while 
it lasted it would be characterized by yet greater atrocities, and inflict yet greater 
annoyances on foreign residents than the war which has gone on so long. 

After a time the exhaustion of resources and the partial extermination of the 
fighting population would bring active hostilities to an end ; but the experience of 
West Indian and South American independence does not make their subsequent 
resumption at all unlikely. It is to create this sort of wilderness within sight of 
the United States that the American people were invited to run the risk of a war 
with Spain. For that a war with Spain involves very grave risk to the United 
States is undoubted. At the outset of a contest which can only be carried on at sea 
the comparative wealth, numbers, and resources of the combatants go for little, 
except so far as they are embodied in actual ships. 

The power of Spain, such as it is, is so embodied; the power of the United States 
is not; and it is at least possible that the first act of a war between the two coun- 
tries might be the bombardment of every American seaport. It does credit to the 
good sense of the American people that they have not cared to run this risk for the 
doubtful benefits of annexing an island which they do not want and being ruled for 
four years longer by General Grant. 



[Inclosure 4 in No. 860.] 
Editorial from the London Times, January 26, 1876. 

In Europe at least there will be a tendency to do injustice to Mr. Fish's indictment 
of Spain, precisely for the reason which may render it effective among his own coun- 
trymen. When American diplomacy states a complaint, it usually makes a large 
call on those general terms of invective which please half-educated readers, but 
shock the taste and rouse the suspicions of the more fastidious students. 

Critical minds are apt to fancy that the rhetoric has been framed for the purpose 
of touching the Americans themselves, and when they mentally translate it into 
scholarly English they tend to cut away much of the truth as well as to improve the 
style. We speak the more frankly because Mr. Fish seeks to obtain the moral sup- 
port of European countries in his contest with the Spanish minister of foreign affairs 
respecting the civil war in Cuba. He would, we assure him, have been much more 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 161 

eOective if ho had given specific examples of the wrongs or hardships suffered hy his 
countrymen and left his readers to supply general phrases of indictment. Neverthe- 
less, there need be no doubt that his charges are substantially just, and the truth 
itself is so grave as to need little ornament from rhetoric. 

In Cuba Spain owns one of the fairest and most fertile islands in the world, and 
it has been detestably misgoverned. While we have allowed our colonies to rule 
themselves in their own way, Spain has persisted in keeping Cuba in the same state 
of tutelage as when she herself was the greatest power in the world, and when the 
very idea of colonial rights had scarcely arisen. The island has been dependent on 
the will of a Government changed every few years by a pronunciamiento or a popu- 
lar revolution. It has been used as a place of honorable banishment for unruly 
soldiers. The dangerous spirits of the army have been sent to Cuba to be kept out 
of mischief, and they have let loose in the colony the temper which had been found 
perilous at home. Freed from responsibility, tliey have often displayed a repetition 
of that domineering spirit, that contempt of the rights of others, and that cruelty 
which once added dark chapters to the history of the Spanish conquest. The slaugh- 
ter of the crew of the Virginivs was an act which would have been quite natural 
three centuries ago, but which, when committed in our time, seems wonderful on 
account of its folly as well as of its atrocity. If the author of such a deed had been 
an Englishman, he would assuredly have been hung ; yet he is still at liberty, and 
we believe he has still some kind of command. 

We can not wonder that Mr. Fish, who speaks for a people as proud in their own way 
as the Spaniards and immeasurably more powerful, should peremptorily demand the 
trial of General Burriel. America has also many other causes of complaint. Her 
citizens owned much property in Cuba, and a great deal of it has been confiscated 
by the Spanish Government. Restitution has been promised and evaded. Americans, 
Mr. Fish thinks, have been wrongfully condemned by the insular courts, and they 
have failed to obtain redress. The Spanish Government has violated its treaty obli- 
gations. Still more serious is the injury which it has done to Cuba, and indirectly to 
America, by the savagery of its warfare. It is laying great part of the island abso- 
lutely waste, and thus injuring the interests of the United States in order to maintain 
slavery and Spanish rule. Nor does Mr. Fish believe that the rebels can be put down, 
and therefore he calls upon the Government at Madrid to give Cuba at least those 
privileges of self-rule which have had an admirable effect in the colonies of this 
country. 

It will be very difficult to answer an indictment so formidable in itself and ending 
in so mild a demand. The purists of international law may at once be warned off 
the field of discussion. They may say that the United States has no more right to 
dictate how Spain shall govern Cuba than Spain has to order the reorganization of 
the South. They may say that the American citizens who live in Cuba went there 
at their own risk, and must bear the inevitable penalties of civil war. Much the 
same fate, it may be pleaded, would have come to any Spaniards who had owned 
property in Virginia during the war between the North and the South, and yet they 
would have received no redress. Nor, it might be added, were either the Confeder- 
ate or the Federal cruisers particularly respectful of foreign rights in their efforts to 
destroy each other. But these arguments are fit merely for lecture rooms. The 
practical answer is that the general rules of international usage, conveniently called 
international law, can be applied only to ordinary cases of warfare. Since there is 
no international parliament, each nation is justified in defending its interests by 
exceptional measures when they are attacked in an exceptional manner. 

Mr. Fish may plead that international law presupposes the power or the readiness 
of States to be guided by the ordinary rules of civilized morality, and that in her 
relations with Cuba Spain has systematically set those rules at defiance. The case 
of the Virginius was such an outrage on the usual laws of warefare as to debar her 
from afterwards invoking them on her own behalf. The duty, therefore, of the 
United States must be determined, not by the letter of international law, but by 
general considerations of policy. We find, then, that Spain has driven one of the 
finest islands in the world into revolt ; that she is trying to suppress the revolt by 
systematic savagery; that she refuses to promise the colonists any form of self- 
government, and that the restoration of peace by mere force is all but hopeless. 
The Spanish minister of foreign affairs has promised, it is true, that justice shall be 
done to those American citizens who have been wronged, but he does not offer to 
remove the real cause of strife by abolishing slavery or allowing the colonists to 
rule themselves. We can scarcely expect Mr. Fish to be satisfied with the repetition 
of a pledge which has already been broken, or with less than the pacification of the 
island itself. Nor can we blame him for insisting that if Spain will not set Cuba 
free, she is bound to make it orderly; but at the same time we can not admit that 
there is any need for war. 

America is acting with at least as much moderation as this country would display 
if Cuba were as near to Cornwall as it is to Florida. In such a case we should 
reauire Spain to protect the property of our countrymen and to take the obvious 
11 



1(52 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

means of restoring her colony to a state of peace. The rhetoric of an English dis^ 
patch would be more measured and precise than that used by Mr. Fish, but it would 
lead to demands at least as keen. On the other hand, the dispute is on* of those 
which may be arranged without war, or even without the formal intervention solic- 
ited by America. The representatives of foreign States at Madrid will, of course, 
discuss the quarrel with the Spanish ministers, and they can not fail to point out 
with friendly politeness the folly of the outrages inflicted on American citizens. They 
will also be able, we should hope, to show the necessity of granting reparation. 

In the course of the negotiations with America, the Spanish ministers may like- 
wise be brought to see that they must grant some form of self-government to the 
revolted colony. The representatives of friendly States can easily show the Spanish 
ministers, without the formality of intervention, that it would be no discredit to 
grant reasonable demands, especially when they have been put forward by a State 
which would in the long run be a match for Spain, even if she were as powerful as 
she was in her imperial days. It ought to be the more easy to give and take advice, 
because the United States is manifestly eager to avoid extremities, and would be 
glad of any reasonable compromise. 

On the other hand, the Spanish people are as ignorant as they are proud, and it 
will need more courage than their ministers usually display to tell the Cortes what 
is the real state of Cuba and what is the sole remedy for misrule* 



Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish, 

No. 862.] Legation of the United States, 

London, January 28, 1876. (Eeceived February 12.) 

Sir : In a dispatch sent yesterday I informed you that I had had 
another conversation with Lord Derby on the subject of our relations 
with Spain and the condition of affairs in Cuba. 

The interview took place three days ago (25th), but I have waited 
until I could report his lordship's language in his own words, and it 
was only last evening that I received from him a memorandum which 
he had promised, enabling me to do so. 

I began by reading to his lordship a copy of the cable telegram I sent 
you on the 2d of December, reporting what he had said to me at 
that time. He remarked that " nothing could be more accurate" than 
my statement of his own language, and at once added that he "still 
remained in the same view as to any intervention." 

We had then a conversation of some length. I called his attention 
to the fact that the text of the President's message, as he must have 
observed, corresponded strictly and in all points with the assurances 
and explanations which I had been instructed to give him in advance 
of its delivery; that the President had discountenanced any present 
recognition of the independence of Cuba, or recognition of belligerent 
rights to the insurgents; that the United States desired no rupture 
with Spain, nor any but the most friendly relations; that any earnest 
movement on the part of the Government at Madrid to satisfy the just 
demands of the United States and to put an end by some effective plan 
of pacification to the deplorable condition of affairs in the island would 
be gladly hailed and met by us in the most cordial spirit, and that 
mediation or intervention by other powers was only contemplated as an 
ultimate necessity. His lordship admitted that such was the tenor and 
spirit of the message. I told him that the later note from the Spanish 
Government, to which Mr. Layard had referred as likely to afford a basis 
for adjustment, had failed to furnish any reason to the President for a 
modification of the views which he had resolved to express and did put 
forth in his message; and that indeed the communication, while it 
afforded hope of a settlement of the particular grievances of the United 
States, appeared to leave the general question where it was. 



AFFAIKS IN CUBA. 163 

Onr special causes of complaint and reclamation against Spain for 
the wrongs done to our citizens and their property I said was, of course, 
our own concern, and would be taken care of by ourselves, but the 
interests of humanity, national friendship, and the peaceful security of 
commerce were all involved in the question of the pacification of the 
island. 

Incidentally I ventured to allude to the opportunity which might, in 
this connection, be afforded to Her Majesty's Government to manifest 
their known desire to cooperate by their influence in putting an end 
everywhere to the institution of slavery. 

I referred to the disposition, as learned from Mr. Cushing, of the 
British minister at Madrid to back him in the matter of Cuba, if a line 
of action could be agreed on between our two Governments; and I 
desired to know whether any definite instructions had been given, or 
would be sent to Mr. Layard tending in that direction. 

I was enabled also — having reference to Mr. flitt's dispatch commu- 
nicated to me with your No. 833 — to say that I had reason to know that 
France was favorably disposed toward some form of friendly mediation, 
but that her decision was, to a degree at least, dependent on the course 
which the Government of Great Britain might adopt. 

Lord Derby said in reply, and I give in what follows the succinct 
statement of his views, as furnished by his own memorandum, that — 

The questions with which the United States Government were dealing — theredress 
of the grievances of American citizens, and the x>roposal to put an end to the war by 
mediation — seemed to him to stand on an en tirely different footing. In regard to the 
first, the United States Government had put forward claims which, assuming them 
to be just in substance, they were entitled to press as a matter of right. In regard 
to mediation, though everyone could understand the inconvenience and damage to 
American interests produced by the continuance of the war, yet, strictly speaking, it 
was not easy to see how any foreign power could claim a right of interference. 

They could give friendly advice, but it would res* with the Government of Spain 
whether to take or to reject it. Lord Derby could only repeat what he had said at 
a former interview — that, in the interest of humanity and in view of the injury pro- 
duced by the war, he would be glad to offer the good offices of England to bring 
about a reconciliation between Spain and Cuba. 

But Her Majesty's Government were not prepared to bring pressure to bear on that 
of Spain, in the event of their overtures being rejected; and that being so, he was 
unwilling to take any step without having, he would not say a certainty, but a 
reasonable probability, that some good result would follow. After his former inter- 
view with General Schenck, he had consulted Mr. Layard, Her Majesty's minister at 
Madrid, and that gentleman in reply had expressed a strong opinion that no attempt 
at mediation by a foreign power was likely to succeed at the present time. Lord 
Derby agreed with Mr. Layard in this view. He knew, as did also General Schenck, 
the extreme pride and sensitiveness of the Spanish character, and he was aware that 
the mere suggestion of foreign interference had produced an outbreak of indignation 
at Madrid. He was convinced that at this moment Spain would listen to no proposal 
of mediation. 

The Spanish Government hoped to finish the Carlist war in the spring, and would 
then be free to put forth their whole military strength for the reduction of the island, 
in which they confidently hoped to succeed. They might be disappointed in both 
expectations, and Lord Derby thought it not unlikely that they would be so, but 
they certainly would not abandon the idea of crushing the insurrection without 
further trial. 

Lord Derby thought therefore that if nothing were contemplated beyond an ami- 
cable interposition, having peace for its object, the time was ill chosen and the move 
premature. 

He had some reason to think that this was also the view of the French and 
German Governments. 

• #***** 

I will only add that the general tone and manner of Lord Derby was 
obviously in sympathy with the idea that it was incumbent on Spam 
to take as early as possible some decided step in the direction of a 
reform of her policy toward Cuba. The practical difficulty in opening 



164 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



the subject to her, and in any action to be taken by her Government, 
lay in the pride and ignorance of her people. He evidently thought 
that, without any direct offer of mediation, some wholesome influence 
might perhaps be exercised over the counsels of her ministers by the 
represeutatives of friendly powers at Madrid. 
I have, etc., 

EOBT. C. SCHENOK. 



Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish. 

Uo. 863.] Legation of the United States, 

London, January 31, 1876. (Received February 16.) 

Sir : With my No. 860 1 sent you among other articles of the English 
press commenting on your dispatch of the 5th of November to Mr. 
Cushing on the subject of Cuba, one extracted from the London Times 
of the 26th instant, to which I directed your particular attention. It 
may interest you to read the comment of the Pall Mall Gazette on that 
Times article, which I now inclose. This reply sets up a question about 
the obligations of international law, for disregard of which it would 
take the Times to task. I still think the views of the Times are those 
which are most in harmony with those entertained at the foreign office. 

I inclose at the same time a short article on Cuba, taken from the 
Evening Standard, which is a high Tory paper; and also a scrap from 
the Spectator, a weekly paper which is considered liberal. 
I have, etc., 

EOBT. C. SOHENOK. 



[Inoloaure 1 in No. 883.] 
Article from the Evening Standard, London, January 39, 1876. 

The Cnban insurrection is as long lived as the Carlist revolt. There is no calcu- 
lating the amount of hlood and treasure which have heen drawn from the mother 
country to restore quiet to the island within the past few years. Reenibrcements of 
troops have been sent periodically from Cadiz and Santander, not a tithe of whom 
will ever see Spain again; captain- general succeeds captain-general with the regu- 
larity of clockwork, and notwithstanding the end never is, but always to be. The 
insurgents are beaten on the average twice a month, yet somehow they always turn 
up in excellent health and spirits as if they thrived on repeated defeat. It is very 
difficult to get at the truth about Cuba ; but one prediction may be made with safety : 
As long as Don Carlos parades Navarre and the Vascongadas, the pacification of 
Cuba will be adjourned. No Spaniard with the spirit of a true hidalgo will allow 
for a moment in public controversy that his country can part with the island, and 
yet there is scarcely one traveled and educated Spaniard, we venture to affirm, who 
will not admit in the intimacy of private conversation that his country can not hold 
the island. If we are to credit a statement of the grievances of the Cubans pub- 
lished in the Paris Temps yesterday evening, Spain deserves to lose the rich posses- 
sion which she has held and misgoverned since 1511. 

According to this document, the island contains nearly a million and a half of 
people, a quarter of them European Spaniards, birds of passage, desiring to make a 
fortune and then return home; another quarter negroes, and the other half natives — 
the offspring of Creoles, colonists, or foreigners. Cuba returned deputies to the 
Cortes till 1837, when it was deprived of its representation and subjected to special 
laws. This course was instigated by the then Governor- General Tacon, influenced 
by the Catalans, who carried on the slave trade and were afraid the deputies would 
denounce their trade, and the monopoly of the resources of the island by Spanish 
adventurers. The colonists vainly protested ; their hopes of a separate constitution 
were disappointed, and in 1851 there was a rising, aided by American filibusters, 
which was easily suppressed. In 1865 Marshal Serrano assured the Cubans that 
they would soon be again represented in the Cortes; but the reactionaries and slave 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 165 

owners sent emissaries to Madrid to prevent any reform, and their efforts led to 
nothing being done but the appointment of a packed commission of inquiry, -which 
sat with closed doors at Madrid. 

The Cuban delegates showed that the island was depopulated, and might support 
16,000,000 of inhabitants; that scarcely a tenth of the land, the most fertile in the 
world, was cultivated; that no roads existed except the few made by the colonists; 
that the judicial and administrative authorities were corrupt; that there was an 
absence of all freedom ; and that the enormous taxation levied was expended in 
Spanish expeditions to Santo Domingo and elsewhere, and in lavish official salaries. 
Spaniards very often, we are afraid, rule Cuba, not in the interests of Cuba, or of 
Spain, but of themselves. They go there, not to settle down and become industrious 
dwellers therein, but to "make a pile" and depart. Some of the grievances under 
which the island labored have been removed, but most of them are still unredressed. 
The revolutionists, on whom the shoe pinches, may be excused for their resistance 
to their taskmasters ; but assuredly uuder no circumstances is the interference of 
roving Yankees in the concerns of other people to be excused, much less applauded. 

THE UNITED STATES AND CUBA. 

The Spectator says that Englishmen may be paying too little attention to the rela- 
tions between Spain and the United States. If the documents just presented to 
Congress are serious at all, they are most important documents, and we incline, after 
making every allowance for the necessities and peculiarities of President Grant's 
position, to believe that they are more serious than is generally imagined. It is 
perfectly possible that General Grant has decided in his own mind that he will not 
quit office without inflicting punishment on Spain, and that he has renewed his 
complaints with an intention of making them heard, and that he is now deliber- 
ately warning Congress, the American people, and the European States that he 
means to have either redress or war. 

He may be trifling with the world, but it is much more probable that he is not; 
and if he is not he is taking precisely the steps European diplomatists would 
expect. He is demanding definitely and distinctly a just thing, the trial of General 
Burriel, which the Spanish Government can not, without risking a collision with 
the volunteers, concede, except on paper. He is telling Madrid in the plainest words 
he can use that unless he can obtain redress he shall propose to resort to force. 

It seerus to us that to imagine President Grant, with a Democratic majority in the 
House of Representatives, a great Spanish fleet in the harbor of Habana, and the Presi- 
dential convention almost at hand, is doing all this in order to court a slap in the face 
from Madrid, a slap which, unresented, would send him on his retirement into a discred- 
ited obscurity, is almost absurd; and if he is in earnest the situation is most serious. 
It is all very well to talk of the American Constitution and the Democratic majority 
and the absence of material preparations in the United States. The President can 
order any movement, either of fleet or army, that he pleases. The Spaniards are in 
no humor to bear interference, and if they defy the Union neither Democrats nor 
Republicans will remember party squabbles. They might refuse the President his 
third term, and might be ready to hang him, but they would plunge into war with 
noue the less fierceness and carry it on with none the less decision. They know 
perfectly well that they might and would suffer at first, but they believe that within 
six months every spare ironclad in the world, including, perhaps, half the Turkish 
fleet, would be in their hands; that Cuba would be full of western soldiers, and 
that the Spaniards would be vainly endeavoring to shield their own harbors from 
attack. 



flnclosure 2 in No. 863.] 
Article from Pall Mall Gazette, January 29, 1876. 

THE VALIDITY OP INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

There is nothing in which English writers ought to be more guarded than the dis- 
cussion of the principles of international law. By slow steps a limited number of 
principles regulating the intercourse of nations in peace and war have been accepted 
by the civilized world, and, taken as a whole, those principles constitute a main 
defense of the commercial nations against the military nations. Of the former class 
England is the most powerful representative, and her voice is still potent enough in 
the counsels of aggregate Europe to forbid any relaxation of rules that experience 
has shown to be beneficial in their regulations of the conduct of nations toward one 
another. At the same time it is plain that some of the great military powers feel 
themselves hampered in their policy by these same rules, and would be well pleased 



166 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

if they could procure the revision of them hy a general international agreement, or, 
better still, if they could bring it to be understood that the rules were not of uni- 
versal application, but, while applicable to normal cases, might be modified or dis- 
pensed with whenever the circumstances were in any way extraordinary. 

A State may do this at present, but it is at its own peril; it incurs the risk of that 
moral censure which even the German Empire does not wholly disregard, and it is 
likely to arouse a jealous and vindictive feeling among neighboring States who con- 
sider the rules of international law as their best security against aggressive surprises. 
But if the right of free interpretation were once conceded, pretexts would never be 
wanting for the suspension or modification of the ordinary rules of international law 
whenever strong powers fouud those rules embarrassing. 

In commenting upon Mr. Fish's Cuban dispatch the other day the Times exhibited 
this danger in a very striking manner. The remarks of the Times are often supposed 
by foreigners to correspond with some intentions of English statesmanship, and a 
really injurious mistake may originate in what is merely the verbiage of misappre- 
hension. The American demands upon Spain are evidently the more satisfactory to 
our contemporary because they coincide with and sustain the truculence with which 
the Madrid Government was rated the other day for its complicity in the misdeeds of 
the Carlists on the coast of Biscay. 

We are told what is quite true, that it will be very difficult for Spain to answer 
Mr. Fish's indictment; but it is added, suspiciously, "The purists of international 
law may at once be warned off the field of discussion." But why? Of what offen- 
sive intentions are these "purists" suspected? They may, it seems, suggest as an 
answer to Mr. Fish's charges that "the United States have no more right to dictate 
how Spain shall govern Cuba than Spain has to order the reorganization of the 
South;" and they may point out imaginary parallel cases in whicb Spanish subjects 
injured by civil warfare in the United States would be left without redress. But 
the writer goes on to say, " These arguments are fit merely for lecture rooms. The 
practical answer is that the general rules of international usage, conveniently called 
international law, can be applied only to ordinary cases of warfare. Since there is 
no international parliament, each nation is justified in defending its interests by 
exceptional measures when they are attacked in an exceptional manner. Mr. Fish 
may plead that international law presupposes the power or the readiness of States 
to be guided by the ordinary rules of civilized morality, and that in her relations 
with Cuba Spain has systematically set those rules at defiance. The case of the Vir- 
ginias was such an outrage on the usual laws of warfare as to debar her from after- 
wards invoking them on her own behalf. The duty, therefore, of the United States 
must be determined, not by the letter of international law, but by general consider- 
ations of policy." 

The writer supposes that "the general rules of international usage, conveniently 
called international law, can be applied only to cases of ordinary warfare." Obvi- 
ously, according to this view, there are no such rules applying to a state of peace or 
to disturbances not recognized as belligerency. But next we come to a naked asser- 
tion of the interpretation of the freedom for which the great military governments 
are anxious. How easy it would be for a power with an overwhelming army to 
prove to its own satisfaction that " its interests had been attacked by exceptional 
measures," and must be "defended in an exceptional manner;" that is, without 
reference to any precedents or accepted principles of international law. Can we not 
imagine the scope of this pretension serenely extended by Prince Bismarck over 
Belgium or Switzerland? Might not Prince Gortschakoff, just as well as Mr. Fish, 
plead that "international law presupposes the power or the readiness of States to be 
guided by the ordinary rules of civilized morality," and declare that Turkey had 
placed herself outside the pale of those rules by ceasing to be rigorously virtuous? 
Perhaps, however, the most curious application of this new method of treating 
international law is the assertion that because Spain behaved badly in the affair of 
the Virginius she became henceforth and forever an outlaw among nations, excluded 
from any advantages that international law secures to more respectable governments. 

This is a hard saying. Are we to understand that one violation of an acknowledged 
international rule by a State excuses other States from paying any regard to rules at 
all in their relations with the offender? If it does not mean this, what are the limits 
of its meaning? "Not the letter of international law, but general considerations of 
policy" are to govern the conduct of the civilized world toward a State that once 
breaks the law itself. This sort of reasoning would justify us in refusing to protect 
a convict from the brutality of his warders on the ground that he had no right to 
appeal to the protection of the law he had broken." "General considerations of 
policy" will, in practice, mean the interest and convenience of the State that pro- 
claims itself aggrieved, but when we ask why these should override " the letter of 
international law," we must remember what international law is. Although it is 
not law in the strict sense of the term, it is, as Professor Cairnes aays, "the formal 
expression of the public opinion of the civilized world respecting the rules of conduct 
which ought to govern the relations of independent nations, and ia consequently 






AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 167 

derived from the source from which all puhlic opinion flows — the moral and intel- 
lectual convictions of mankind." It is surely no more desirable that this public 
opinion should be set at naught by the interest or convenience of a particular State 
than that a particular individual should be considered justified in modifying to suit 
hi* own inclinations or objects the accepted morality of the society in which he lives. 



Mr. Schenck to Mr. Fish. 

No. 865.] Legation of the United States, 

London, February 1, 1876. (Keceived February 16.) 

Sir: The question of the relations between the United States and 
Spain continues, iu some form, almost daily to occupy the attention of 
the English public and press. 

The interview represented as having been held with you by a reporter 
of the New York World has been this morning the subject of a long 
editorial comment in the London Times, and I send you herewith the 
article, which you may take some interest in reading, even if you should 
not think it of value enough to be preserved. 

I have, etc., Eobt. 0. Sohenok. 



[Inclosure in No. 865.] 
Article from London Times, February 1, 1876. 

When it became known in the United States that the State Department at "Wash- 
ington had invited the cooperation of the European powers in the difficult task of 
bringing Spain to reason there was a thrill of mingled surprise and relief. " What 
has become of the Monroe doctrine, then?" was the first question that caught hold 
of the public mind. If, however, the opponents of General Grant's Administration 
had hoped to create any embarrassment for the Republican President and his min- 
isters by raising and pressing this question their expectations have not, apparently, 
borne fruit. We should by this time have had news of an agitation of popular 
opinion if any such movement had occurred, for, though the full text of the dis- 
patches sent by Mr. Fish to Mr. Cushing and General Schenck were only laid before 
the House of Representatives on the 21st of January, it was well known and was nob 
denied by the organs of the Government that the right of the leading European 
powers to interfere in the politics of the American Continent had been recognized, 
and in some sense invited, by the Department of State. 

We published yesterday the report of an interesting interview with Mr. Fish, which 
must of course be received with a cautious reserve, since it is vouched for only by 
a powerful Democratic journal, the implacable enemy and unsparing critic of the 
Republican Administration. The statements, arguments, and explanations attributed 
to the Secretary of State are not, however, palpably spurious; they are very much 
what we should be prepared to find an astute statesman advancing who felt it 
incumbent upon him to respect popular prejudices while receding from an untenable 
position and " minimizing" obsolete principles. 

Mr. Fish, if we accept the testimony of the " interviewer," frankly admitted two 
days before the presentation of the correspondence to the House of Representatives 
that he had invited the European Governments to examine and consider the actual 
state of things in Cuba, with a view to their aiding the United States, to use Mr. 
Fish's words, "in our appeals to Spain, on purely right grounds, without any prej- 
udice in our favor whatsoever." 

This admission hardly goes so far as to disclose the solicitation contained in the 
dispatch to General Schenck, in which Mr. Fish suggests that "the Government of 
Great Britain may possibly, of its own accord, think proper in view of its own 
interests, to cooperate with the United States in this effort to arrest the cruel war 
of devastation ; humanity, its own great interests, and regard for the preservation 
of the peace of the world, will, it is believed, without doubt, lead it to support the 
position which this Government has at length been forced to assume, and to address 
its representative at Madrid to that end." But the definition of his diplomatic 
course given by Mr. Fish would be quite sufficient to kindle a popul?". clamor if the 
Monroe doctrine, as generally understood, had kept its hold upon the imagination 



168 AFFAIRS IN CUBA 

of the American people. It was in fact interpreted to signify a deliberate attenua- 
tion, if not a direct surrender, of that famous political dogma; and Mr. Fish, while 
he labors to show that he holds to the traditional policy of his country, is so care- 
ful to cut away all the modern and popular developments, accretions, and extensions 
with which the principles laid down by President Monroe in 1823 have been supplied 
that he leaves almost nothing as the essence of the doctrine so long proclaimed to 
be the keystone of American liberties. 

To prove his case and defend his departure from what has been, at all events, sup- 
posed to be the tradition of American policy, Mr. Fish adroitly opens a curious his- 
torical controversy. He boldly turns the tables on all European critics of the Monroe 
doctrine with the assertion that the real author of the principle enunciated in Presi- 
dent Monroe's message was neither the President himself nor, as has been more com- 
monly accepted, his Secretary of State and successor in the Presidential office, John 
Quincy Adams, but, of all men in the world, Mr. Canning. The revelation is astound- 
ing. Are we, then, to believe that the statesman who boasted, in the name of his 
country, that he " called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the 
Old," was so heedless of the consequences of his acts that, having created a new 
order where chaos had reigned previously, he was willing to assent to a pledge 
excluding the creating power from any regulation of the created elements, whatever 
might be their confusion or conflicts ? 

This is almost incredible, and we have, moreover, some recollection that Canning 
more than once protested against the restrictive and exclusive policy on which the 
Government of President Monroe seemed disposed to insist. But when we look at 
the evidence on which Mr. Fish asserts that Canning was responsible for the Monroe 
doctrine, even in its original and narrowest form, we are astonished at the intel- 
lectual audacity of the attempt to give the irrelevant relevancy by dint of stout 
affirmation. 

The Monroe doctrine, as laid down in the message of December 2, 1823 ; plainly 
warns the European powers that the American Government would " consider any 
attempt to extend their system to any portion of this (the Western) Hemisphere as 
dangerous to our peace and safety." The President was good enough to assure the 
European powers that no interference with the " existing colonies or dependencies" 
was intended; " but," he added, and this is the kernel of the " doctrine," " with the 
Governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose 
independence we have, on great consideration and just principles, acknowledged, we 
could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling 
in any other manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light than 
as the manifestation o£ an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." Mr. 
Canning was certainly adverse to Spain and friendly toward the revolted colonies of 
Spain ; but even if his feelings had warped his judgment, he could hardly, one might 
feel sure, have advised the American Government to warn us of "any interposition 
for the purpose," not only, be it observed, "of oppressing" the States that had 
asserted their independence, but even "of controlling them in any other manner." 
Turning, however, to Mr. Fish's citations from the account given by Mr. Rush, then 
American minister at the Court of St. James, of his conversations with Mr. Can- 
ning, we discover what it was that the English statesman actually said. He gave, 
as we should have expected, sound, sensible, spirited advice, with not a single word 
in it that could justify the pretensions of President Monroe's message. 

He pointed out that the United States was deeply interested in the struggle 
between Spain and her revolted colonies, and that the American Government had an 
irresistible claim to make its influence felt in proportion to its interest in the strife. 
He urged that Europe should recognize this claim in all dealings with American pol- 
itics, but he assumed that such dealings there must be. He upbraided the American 
people with their indifference to the interference of the European monarchies in the 
political arrangements of the New World, but the remedy he advocated was not the 
surly isolation insisted upon by Monroe, but a cordial and steady cooperation between 
England and the United States as a counterpoise, not in prohibition of the influence 
of other powers. These are Mr. Canning's words, and nothing could be less open to 
misconstruction: "Had not a new epoch," he asked Mr. Rush, "arrived in the rela- 
tive position of the United States toward Europe which Europe must acknowledge? 
Were the great commercial interests which hung upon the destinies of thenew conti- 
nent to be canvassed and adjusted in this hemisphere without the cooperation or 
even the knowledge of the United States? Were they to be canvassed and adjusted, 
he would even add, without some proper understanding between the United States 
and Great Britain as the two chief commercial and maritime States of both worlds? 
He hoped not; ^e would wish to persuade himself not." 

This was Canning's conception of the attitude which the United States ought to 
have assumed in American affairs and in their relations with the European powers. 
Three months later came President Monroe's message, with the doctrine which Mr. 
Fish asserts to be traceable to Canning's suggestion, but which seems to us, accord- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 169 

Ing to the obvious construction of language, not to be reconcilable either in terms 
or sense with Canning's words. 

Unfortunately the theory as defined by Adams and enounced by Monroe became 
further corrupted in the popular politics of the United States until it degenerated 
into a crude and barren cry of "America for Americans." In practice the good sense 
of American statesmen mitigated its mischiefs and absurdities, though its pretensions 
hampered their freedom of action injuriously and kept many perilous questions open 
that might have been usefully closed by diplomacy. As Mr. Fish tells us, "the very 
next year after President Monroe advanced that doctrine the United States asked 
Russia to mediate with Spain to stop the war between Spain and the South American 
Governments, whose independence the United States had acknowledged." 

But the effect of the Monroe doctrine was, on the whole, so pernicious, especially 
in its moral iniluence over the American mind, that we decline to admit the father- 
ing of it upon Canning. It produced at the time of the Mexican expedition a rank- 
ling indigsation at imaginary wrongs that would never have come into being if that 
unlucky experiment in politics had been looked upon without jealousy. Many 
Americans came at length to believe not only that the Monroe doctrine was a law of 
nature, but that the existence of the British colonies, the Spanish colonies, the 
colonies of France and Holland, and the Empire of Brazil upon the soil of the West- 
ern Continents was an insupportable outrage. From these exaggerations of an 
originally foolish claim we are glad to see that Mr. Fish has withdrawn, and that he 
shapes his policy rather by the precedents of President Monroe's Administratiou 
than by the principles laid down in President Monroe's message. The invitation 
addressed to the European powers is declared by Mr. Fish to fall outside the scope 
of the Monroe doctrine, because Cuba is still technically a " colony " of Spain and 
has not succeeded in asserting her independence. But the spirit of President Mon- 
roe's message clearly would exclude the interference in Cuba of any other European 
power but Spain, for no other can claim the locus standi of an existing possessory 
interest. This spirit Mr. Fish has utterly cast out, and if he be willing practically 
to read the Monroe doctrine backward and to interpret it according to the counsels 
of Canning, which the original dogma directly traversed, we shall not grudge him 
success in his efforts to preserve the appearance of consistency. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. SchencTc. 

No. 847.] Department of State, 

Washington, February 21, 1876. 
Sir : I inclose herewith for your information a copy of a dispatch of 
the 23d of January last, No. 1279, from Mr. Hitt, charge" d'affaires ad 
interim at Paris, which contains an account of a recent interview be- 
tween himself and the Duke Decazes in relation to the Cuban question. 
I am, sir, etc., 

Hamilton Fish. 



ITAI/tf. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Marsh. 

No. 503, of November 15, 1875, and telegram of December 13, 1875. 
(Same as No. 756, of November 15, 1875, and telegram of December 6, 
1875, to Mr. Washburne, pp. 98, 99.) 



Mr. Marsh to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

Eome, December 14, 1875. 
Italian Government will instruct minister at Madrid to take favorable 
opportunity to urge expediency of fulfilling duties of Spain to United 
States, and of pacifying Cuba, without specifying measures. 

Massh. 



170 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



Mr. Marsh to Mr. Fish. 

No. 585.] Legation of the United States, 

Rome, December 14, 1875. 

Sir : Your telegram of the 13th, directing me to carry out instruction 
No. 503, reached me at 1 o'clock in the night of the 13th-14th instant. 
At an early hour in the morning I asked, by note, a special interview 
with the minister of foreign affairs. This was appointed for the after- 
noon by him, and I accordingly had a full conversation with Mr. Visconti 
Venosta on the subject of the instruction to Mr. Oushing. 

I thought it, on the whole, expedient to make full notes of the con- 
tents of the instruction and to read them to the minister, with such 
brief oral explanations as suggested themselves, instead of literally 
reading the whole instruction, conforming myself, however, as closely 
as I was able, to the tenor of the instruction. 

The only point of importance on which I added anything beyond mere 
verbal explanations and suggestions and statistical facts was in regard 
to the alleged desire of the United States for the annexation of Cuba, 
which is widely believed in Europe to be the guiding motive in all the 
action of the Federal Government in its relations with Spain. I stated 
that the editorial tone of many journals in the United States, and that 
of many articles in journals not professedly advocating the annexation, 
was prompted by fraudulently naturalized Cubans, refugees, and other 
persons interested in severing the connection between Spain and Cuba; 
that I knew no reason to think that the general population of the United 
States, still less the more enlightened and patriotic classes, desired the 
possession of the island, and that I did not in the least doubt the sin- 
cerity of the President's disclaimer of such a wish ; and I observed that 
the abolition of slavery in the United States had destroyed the force of 
the motives which led Mr. Buchanan's Administration to propose the 
purchase of Cuba, and had rendered the annexation of the island no 
longer specially desirable as a political object to any section of the 
United States. 

I referred also, by way of illustration, to the pretense of French, and to 
some extent of Italian, journals that the intervention of the Emperor 
Napoleon III in Mexico was rendered necessary by the ambitious views 
of the United States in regard to territorial extension, and pointed out 
that after the capture of the City of Mexico by General Scott we were 
virtually in possession of the whole country, and could have retained it 
if we had so desired, but that we voluntarily surrendered it, retaining 
only California and some other territory then thought to possess little 
value, and paying to Mexico a large sum as an indemnity. 

I also thought it not disrespectful to the Administration to allude to 
the unworthy suggestion constantly made in Europe, that the late ac< 
tion of the Government in the matter has been a mere u electioneering 
maneuver," by pointing out that the character of the present Adminis- 
tration warranted no suspicion of such motives and that in the present 
condition of political parties and of public opinion in the United States 
the measure in question could serve no such purpose and be designed 
for no such end. 

I have, etc., George P. Marsh. 






AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 171 

PORTUGAL. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Moran. 

No. 21 of November 15, 1875. (Same as No. 756 of same date to Mr. 
Washburne, p. 98.) 



Mr. Moran to Mr. Fish. 

No. 47.] Legation of the United States, 

Lisbon, December 9, 1875. 

Sir: I received your Nos. 21 and 22, with inclosures, on the 6th 
instant, and have made myself thoroughly familiar with their contents. 
In compliance with the instructions in the postscript to No. 21, I have 
not communicated the substance of your No. 266 to Mr. Gushing to Mr. 
Corvo; but should you direct me by telegraph or otherwise to do so 
your orders shall be promptly attended to. 

At present I can not form a reliable opinion as to the steps Portugal 
may be disposed to take in her intercourse with Spain touching this 
painful conflict in Cuba, but I think that her anxiety to be on good 
terms with that Government will cause her to hesitate to urge upon the 
Spanish cabinet at this time the importance and necessity of either 
abandoning or terminating the contest, however much she may desire 
to see it brought to an end. 

I have, etc., Benjamin Moran. 



Mr. Moran to Mr. Fish. 

No. 51.] Legation of the United States, 

Lisbon, December 31, 1875. 

Sir : Senor Alexander de Castro, who was recently appointed ambas- 
sador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from Spain near this 
court, arrived in Lisbon on the 21st instant, had an audience with and 
presented his letter of credence to the King on the 28th, and yesterday 
and to-day received by invitation his colleagues of the corps diplo- 
matique at the palace of the Marquis de Penafiel, which he has taken 
for his residence during his stay in Lisbon. 

I called upon his excellency this afternoon and was cordially received. 
He is a person of good presence, is tall and courtly, and would be 
called distingue in any society. Our conversation was brief, but we 
did not in any way touch upon politics. As neither he nor I had any- 
thing to say to each other about the relations between the United 
States and Spain, we prudently avoided any reference to that subject; 
but I was struck with the conviction that I shall find him at least a 
courteous colleague. 

Why Spain has sent an ambassador here to replace an envoy ex- 
traordinary is not very well understood, especially as Portugal can not 
return the honor. It is generally believed, however, in well-informed 
circles in Lisbon, that it is more a personal compliment to Senor de 
Castro on the part of his sovereign than a mark of admiration for 
Portugal, although his speech to the King, a copy and translation of 
which I inclose, with the King's reply, would lead the world to a dif- 
ferent conclusion. He is a man of considerable influence in Spain 



172 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

under the present Government, and it is well known that he has no 
intention of remaining here for more than five or six months. You will 
observe that he cautiously insinuates disapprobation of an Iberian 
union ; but this Government is very anxious on that point, and it is not 
sure that Spain will not overrun Portugal in the event of the inde- 
pendence of Cuba as compensation for the loss of her greatest colony. 
And yet, although Spain undoubtedly longs for the unification of the 
peninsula — although such unification would be quite as beneficial to 
Portugal as to Spain — although England and Scotland hated one 
another worse than Spain and Portugal do, and yet eventually came 
together to their common advantage — although the tendency toward 
unification is the general fact in modern times, as evinced in the cases 
of Sweden and Norway, of Italy, and of Germany, and can not fail to 
come sooner or later as respects Spain and Portugal — yet, I believe 
that no sensible Spaniard contemplates this union by means of war or 
of any force other than that of circumstances, which it is certain, 
sooner or later, will induce Portugal to desire it equally with Spain, 
however strong the opposition to such an end may now be in this 
Kingdom. 

The underlying fear, however, on the part of this Government and 
people that Spain will seek an early pretext to imperil the independence 
of Portugal in the event of her losing Cuba, is so apparent to me that 
I am satisfied that Portugal will under no circumstances at present 
venture to urge upon the Spanish Government the importance of a 
speedy termination of the conflict in Cuba, although I am satisfied that 
this Government ardently desires such a result. I hope, however, that 
I may be mistaken in this, and that when the time arrives for action 
Portugal will not be found wanting in her duty to the cause of human- 
ity, justice, and mercy. 

I have, etc., Benjamin Moban. 



Jlnclosore 1 In No. 61 Translation of speech of Sefior de Caatro to the King, December 28, 18f&.] 

Sir : The King, Alfonso XII, of Spain senda me to Your Majesty as ambassador 
extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary. I have now the high honor to place in 
Your Majesty's hands the royal letter which accredits me. 

Sir, the personal representation with which my angust Sovereign has deigned to 
invest me is a demonstration of the high esteem in which Your Majesty is held and 
of my Sovereign's ardent desire to cement more and more the friendship with the 
august person of Your Majesty, with the royal family, as well as the intimate and 
cordial alliance between two people who mutually respect each other and hold fra- 
ternal relations. 

To obey the desire of my august Sovereign is my principal duty. To fulfill this is 
my ardent wish. One and the other will be easy for me to accomplish if Your 
Majesty concedes me his good will and his Government the cooperation which is 
necessary. 

Portugal and Spain are as two good and old friends, who in the recollection of 
their respective and similar glorious actions can and ought to live together without 
other rivalries than an honorable incentive to add to such actions, while being both 
supported by the constitutional monarchies by which they are governed. 

May Your Majesty deign to accept the homage of my profound reapeet. 



flncloanre 2 1b No. 51.— Translation of the King's speech in reply to Sefior de Castro, December 

28, 1875.] 

SeSor Ambassador: Having received the letter of His Majesty the King of Spain, 
which accredits you as ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at 
my court, I have heard with sincere pleasure all that you have just expressed to me 
in the name of His Majesty; both what relates to myself, the royal family, and to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 173 

the nation oyer whose destinies I preside, as also concerning the honorable and 
important mission to represent him personally which your august sovereign has 
designed to entrust you with. 

Deeply sensible of this act of oourtesy on the part of His Majesty the King Alfonso 
XII, I shall always hold it as an agreeable duty to reciprocate his beneficent wishes. 
I shall, moreover, uot cease to employ every means within my reach to preserve the 
good harmony, and cement more and more the relations of sincere friendship which 
happily subsist between the two people, united by identity of political institutions, 
by the record of their glorious deeds in the forefront of civilization and human 
progress. 

As to yourself, Senor Ambassador, I have much pleasure in assuring you that I 
hold in high esteem your celebrity and the distinguished qualities which adorn you; 
with such honorable precedents already known to me, no doubt need rest in your 
mind but that you have obtained already the right of my good will and to the 
esteem and loyal oooperation of my Government. 

Mr. Fish to Mr. Moran. 

No. 26.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 4, 1876. 
Sir: Your dispatches numbered 46 and 47 have been received. With 
reference to the last-mentioned dispatch, I have to state that, although 
a copy of the instruction addressed to Mr. Cushing (No. 266) was trans- 
mitted to you, the Department, upon considering the question of which 
it treats, reached the same conclusions as to the course which would 
likely be taken by the Government of Portugal as are expressed by 
you ; hence it did not instruct you to make any communication in regard 
thereto to that Government, nor is it at this time deemed advisable to 
so instruct you. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



RUSSIA. 
Mr. Fish to Mr. BoTcer. 

No. 13 of November 15, 1875, and telegram of December 13, 1875. 
(Same as No. 756 of November 15, 1875, and telegram of December 
6, 1875, to Mr. Washburne, pp. 98, 99.) 



Mr. Boher to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

St. Petersburg, December 16 1875. 
Gortchakoff promises, if Emperor consent, representations shall be 
made to Spanish Government freely, agreeing to do all in his power for 
the preservation of good relations. He, however, doubts influence of 
Russia at Madrid, but sympathetically appreciates our difficulty. 

Boker. 



Mr. Boher to Mr. Fish. 

No. 35.] Legation of the "United States, 

St. Petersburg, December 16, 1875. 
Sir : I have the honor to inform you that on the morning of the 14th 
instant I received from you a cipher telegram. As this was not written 



174 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

with the key I had sent to you, nor with that which I had at first received 
from yon, it was impossible to decipher it. I therefore telegraphed to 
you, "Cipher unintelligible; send keyword or use scythe." 

That evening Mr. Schuyler succeeded in deciphering your telegram, 
making it read, " Proceed as instructed in number thirteen," thus get- 
ting your keyword, and this interpretation was confirmed by your tele- 
gram received yesterday morning. 

I immediately acted upon your instructions and saw Prince Gortcha- 
koff. The details of this interview I shall give you in another dispatch. 
As a summary of its result, I sent you a cipher telegram, a copy of which 
I inclose. 

I have, etc., Geo. H. Boker. 



Mr. BoJcer to Mr. Fish. 

.No. 36.] Legation of the United States, 

St. Petersburg, December 18, 1875. 

Sir: I have the honor to say that in accordance with your instruc- 
tions, already referred to in my dispatch No. 35, I called on Prince 
Gortchakoff for the purpose of laying before him the state of the rela- 
tions existing between the United States and Spain, as set forth in the 
inclosures to your dispatch No. 13, and of suggesting to him whether, 
in the present uncertain condition of the negotiations, it might not be 
deemed advisable by the Government of Eussia to make such repre- 
sentations to the Spanish Government as may hasten the peaceful set- 
tlement which the Government of the United States has in view. 

On laying before Prince Gortchakoff a condensed statement of the 
facts, and the arguments contained in your dispatches to Mr. dishing, 
I found that the chancellor not only took a deep interest in the ques- 
tions before him, but he spontaneously offered, if that course should be 
in accordance with the wishes of the Emperor, to employ the good 
offices and the friendly advice of the Russian Government with that 
of Spain, with the intention of effecting an equitable adjustment of 
the difficulties. At the same time Prince Gortchakoff cautioned me 
not to expect too much from the intervention of Russia in Spanish 
affairs, as the influence of the Imperial Government with that of Spain 
could not be very great at the present time, owing to the long-existing 
diplomatic rupture between the two countries, the memory of which had 
scarcely died away at Madrid, the little intercourse between the peoples, 
and the almost complete separation in which each power exists in rela- 
tion to the interests of the other. 

When I recounted to Prince Gortchakoff a narrative of the events 
which had led to the complication between the United States and 
Spain, he ex{)ressed the warmest sympathy with the United States. 
He seemed to be surprised at the patience and the forbearance with 
which our Government had acted, not only toward the Government of 
Spain, but toward the more easily approached provincial authorities 
of Cuba. He said, significantly, that history does not show us that 
this has been the usual conduct of strong powers toward weaker ones. 
He commended the reluctance which the Government of the United 
States seemed to feel in proceeding to serious measures with a country 
in the distracted condition of Spain, and he said that this last act, the 
laying of the question before the great powers for their consideration 
and possible action, was a display of candor and of magnanimity on our 
part that was almost without precedent in international affairs, and 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 175 

that it must forever set at rest the report that the United States had 
views of territorial extension in the direction of Cuba. 

In commenting on the possible results of a rupture between the United 
States and Spain, Prince Gortchakoff observed that the earliest and the 
most inevitable consequence of hostilities would be the loss of Cuba to 
the Spanish Crown. This event, in his opinion, would be fatal to the 
prospects of the yet unsettled King of Spain ; as it would be a humilia- 
tion to Spanish pride which none of the many political parties of the 
Kingdom could venture to forgive for the sake of upholding the inse- 
cure throne of the young King. That consideration seemed to Prince 
Gortchakoff to be the most important and pressing one to Spanish 
interests, and should the Emperor agree that representations be made 
to the Spanish Government, as to the questions at issue between Spain 
and the United States, I have little doubt that the argument addressed 
to that Government will be most strongly urged from the point of view 
just stated. 

I shall take care to acquaint myself with any steps that maybe taken 
by the Government of Russia in the direction above proposed, and I 
shall give to the Department the earliest intelligence of the result of the 
movement. 

I have, etc., Geo. H. Boker. 



Mr. Bolter to Mr. Fish. 

[Telegram.] 

St. Petersburg, December 23, 187b. 
Eussian envoy at Madrid instructed to make representations to 
Spanish Government. Gortchakoff thinks everything will depend on 
action of England. 

Boker. 



Mr. Bolter to Mr. Fish. 

No. 38.] Legation of the United States, 

St. Petersburg, December 23, 1875. 

Sir: I have the honor to say that this morning I had an interview 
with Prince Gortchakoff in regard to the diplomatic representations 
which it was proposed should be made by Russia to the Spanish Gov- 
ernment touching the precarious relations at present existing between 
the latter Government and that of the United States, the substance of 
which interview I this day transmitted to you in a cipher dispatch, a 
copy of which is herein inclosed. 

Prince Gortchakoff informed me that the Emperor had acquiesced in 
the design, and that instructions had been forwarded to the Russian min- 
ister at Madrid to lay before the Spanish Government the views of the 
chancellor as expressed in my dispatch No. 36, of December 18, 1875, and 
to proffer friendly and serious advice to that Government in accordance 
with the spirit of those views. 

While Prince Gortchakoff assured me of the pleasure which it gave 
the Emperor and himself to act in the interest of peace and of good 
understanding between friendly nations, he once more requested me to 
remember that which he had previously said as to the moderate influ- 
ence which Russia must be supposed to exercise in Spanish affairs. 



176 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

He also reiterated the opinion — as though it were the summing up of 
his judgment as to the question — that the course of Spain would depend 
altogether upon the action of the British Government, and the repre- 
sentations which might be made by it at the court of Madrid, regard- 
ing the unsatisfactory relations between the United States and Spain. 
He said that the combined influence of all the other powers was not 
equal to that of Great Britain with the Spanish Government; and he 
supposed that as the United States and Great Britain had a common 
interest and a like grievance in the questions which grew out of the 
affair of the Virginius, ,the policy and the action of the two nations 
would be in harmony. 

I have, etc., * Geo. H. Borer. 



Mr. Fish to Mr. Boker. 

No. 25.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 13, 1876. 

Sir: Your No. 36, reporting the result of your interview with Prince 
Gortchakoff on communicating to him No. 266 to Mr. Cushing, pursuant 
to instruction No. 13, has been read with interest and attention, and it 
is a source of satisfaction to learn that the chancellor should have been 
impressed with the views of the President contained therein and the 
patience and forbearance manifested by the United States toward Spain. 

It was because the President was satisfied that such conclusions must 
be reached by an unbiased friendly power to whom the facts might be 
communicated, that you were instructed to bring the instruction and 
the views of this Government to the notice of the minister for foreign 
affairs. 

I await with interest further intelligence as to the course pursued by 
Russia and as to any instructions which may be issued to the repre- 
sentative of that Government at Madrid. 

While appreciating the frankness of the chancellor and the friendly 
disposition manifested by him, there are certain expressions in your 
dispatch which suggest the possibility of some misapprehension of the 
purpose of this Government in making the communication in question. 

Tou state that on laying before the chancellor a condensed statement 
of the facts and arguments, he spontaneously offered, if in accordance 
with the wishes of the Emperor, to employ the good offices and friendly 
advice of the Russian Government with that of Spain with the inten- 
tion of effecting an equitable adjustment of the difficulties, and in the 
latter portion of the dispatch that the chancellor stated that the act of 
this Government in laying the question before the great powers for 
consideration and possible action was a display of candor and magna- 
nimity almost without precedent in international affairs. 

Instruction No. 266 having been presented to the Government of 
Spain by Mr. Cushing at Madrid on November 30, you were instructed 
on the 13th day of December to read the same to the minister for for- 
eign affairs at St. Petersburg, and to assure him of the sincere desire 
of the President for a termination of the conflict in Cuba by the spon- 
taneous action of Spain, or the agreement of the parties, and to state 
that should the Government to which you are accredited find it consist- 
ent with its views to urge upon Spain the necessity of terminating or 
abandoning this contest, it was believed that the friendly expression of 
such views might tend to the earlier restoration of peace and prosperity 
to Cuba. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 177 

It was intended to bring to the notice of Spain the friendly expres- 
sion of the unbiased and disinterested views of a member of the great 
family of nations in reference to the necessity of a termination of the 
conflict in Cuba, but it was not the intention of this Government to go 
further, nor was it expected that the Russian Government should take 
any steps toward effecting an adjustment of the individual griefs of 
the United States, nor that it should lend any material assistance under 
any circumstances. The course adopted by this Government was 
deemed a just and manly one toward Spain, beneficial to humanity at 
large, and calculated to put at rest any question of ulterior motives on 
the part of the United States. 

I refer to this question by way of greater caution, because on such 
delicate subjects a shade of misapprehension or a slight change of 
meaning may at times lead to erroneous impressions, and while there- 
fore conveying to the chancellor the thanks of this Government for his 
declarations, and with an appreciation of his friendly disposition, it 
may be well to make it certain that no misapprehension exists in ref- 
erence to the subject. 

I am, etc., Hamilton Fish. 



Mr. BoJcer to Mr. Fish. 

No. 55.] Legation of the United States, 

St. Petersburg, February 9, 1876. 

Sir: Referring to your dispatch 2STo. 25, under date of January 13, 
1876, I have the honor to say that I am confident no misapprehension 
exists or ever existed in the mind of Prince Gortchakoff as to the 
purpose of the Government of the United States in orally communi- 
cating to the Government of Russia dispatch No. 226, addressed to Mr. 
Cushing, in accordance with your instruction No. 13. 

After having carefully considered the three concluding paragraphs 
of your dispatch No. 25, 1 feel justified in saying that Prince Gortcha- 
koff' understood my communication in the sense in which the purpose 
of the Government is therein expressed, and in no other sense of which 
I am at present aware. He distinctly understood from me that the 
only remedy that could be applied to the many difficulties which have 
grown out of the civil war in Cuba, as set forth in the dispatch to Mr. 
Cushing, No. 266, was, in the opinion of the Government of the United 
States, a speedy pacification of the island. That is to say, the main 
question which concerned the powers friendly to Spain was the general 
condition of things in Cuba, while the particular questions between 
the United States and Spain which had arisen from the situation were 
exposed to the Government of Russia by way of furnishing argument 
and illustration of the direction in which matters were drifting. 

Prince Gortchakoff did not understand from me that any kind of 
interventiou between the United States and Spain was suggested or 
desired ou the part of my Government; nor could he have inferred 
from my language that the Government of the United States did not 
consider itself to be capable, without foreign aid, of settling its affairs 
with Spain. 

The suggestion which I made to Prince Gortchakoff, and upon which 

I believe he acted, was, that if, after considering the state of things in 

Cuba, the Imperial Government should, in the interests of Spain, and 

with a view to the preservation of the peace of the world, make such 

12 



178 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

friendly representations as it saw fit to the Government of that country, 
such a course would be satisfactory to the Government of the United 
States. I did not attempt to prescribe the character of the representa- 
tions to be made; but as all the difficulties had arisen from the dis- 
tracted state of the Island of Cuba, it could not but be inferred that 
the only feasible advice that could be given must have for its object the 
pacification of that island. 

From the first I saw how delicate were the issues involved in the 
business which I had undertaken, and how readily Prince Gortchakoff 
might decline to act, on the principle of noninterference with the 
domestic affairs of a friendly nation. On the other hand, I desired to 
succeed in the negotiation, and to bring about the end which my Gov- 
ernment had in view, without placing the United States under the bur- 
den of an obligation to Eussia. I therefore kept prominently in sight 
the ulterior interests of Spain, which were to be served by an induced 
change in her policy, and I thought that I had met with a fair measure 
of success when I perceived that Prince Gortchakoff 's views took the 
same direction. 

I take it for granted that it was hardly supposed by the Government 
of the United States that the exposition of the facts and the arguments 
employed in dispatch No. 226, although communicated confidentially to 
Prince Gortchakoff, would not be used substantially by him in any 
representations which he might instruct the minister of Eussia at 
Madrid to make to the Government of Spain, since without that infor- 
mation, according to Prince Gortchakoff 's statement as to his slight 
knowledge of the subject, he would have had no grounds upon which 
to base the proposed representations. 

On reading over my two dispatches Nos. 36 and 38, from the stress 
which 1 have laid upon the then exciting topic, the precarious relations 
existing between the United States and Spain, and the rumors of an 
impending war, which indeed greatly influenced the direction of the 
conversation between Prince Gortchakoff and myself, I can easily under- 
stand how I, in writing my dispatches, was led away from the main 
subject, the present condition of Cuba, and confined myself almost 
wholly to Prince Gortchakoff 's views of the threatening aspect of affairs 
between the two countries. 

I believe, however, that neither Prince Gortchakoff nor I lost sight 
of the fact that the cause of the perilous aspect of affairs lay in the state 
of things in Cuba, and that the only remedy for the difficulty would be 
found in a change of the policy of Spain toward her colony. I now 
observe, however, that in the two dispatches above referred to I rather 
reported Prince Gortchakoff s words than my own, and by thus giving 
a too one-sided view of the matter I conveyed an erroneous impression 
as to the attitude which I assumed on the part of the United States. 
I have, etc., 

Geo. H. Boker. 



Mr. Boker to Mr. Fish. 

No. 56.] Legation of the United States, 

St. Petersburg, February 10, 1876. 
Sir : In order to satisfy the Government of the United States fully 
as to the understanding of Prince Gortchakoff of the communication 
made to him by me, which forms the subject of my dispatch No. 55, 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 179 

under date of the 9th of February, I, to-day, had an interview with 
that gentleman. 

On communicating to him the substance of the three concluding 
paragraphs of your dispatch No. 25, he assured me that he had not had 
any misapprehension of the object sought to be accomplished by the 
Government of the United States, nor any misunderstanding of the 
language which I had used to him on the occasion of my first interview, 
and that instructions to the Russian minister at Madrid to use his good 
offices with the Spanish Government for the proposed object had been 
written in accordance with the spirit of the words contained in your 
dispatch No. 25. 

When I communicated to Prince Gortchakoff that part of your dis- 
patch No. 25 in which the thanks of the Government of the United 
States are conveyed to him for his opinions and course regarding our 
complications with Spain, the chancellor seemed to be deeply touched, 
and he warmly returned his acknowledgments for the courtesy ex- 
tended to him. 

I have, etc., Geo. H. Boejbk. 



180 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



CUBA. 

PAPER SUBMITTED BY MR. MORGAN, PRINTED FOR THE USE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 

The Congress of the United States, deeply regretting the unhappy 
state of hostilities existing in Cuba, which has again been the result 
of the demand of a large number of the native population of that 
island for its independence, in a spirit of respect and regard for the 
welfare of both countries, earnestly desires that the security of life 
and property and the establishment of permanent peace and of a gov- 
ernment that is satisfactory to the people of Cuba should be accom- 
plished with the consent of Spain. 

And to the extent that the people of Cuba are seeking the rights of 
local self-government for domestic purposes, the Congress of the United 
States expresses its earnest sympathy with them. The Congress 
would also welcome with satisfaction the concession, by Spain, of com- 
plete sovereignty to the people of that island, and would cheerfully give 
to such a voluntary concession the cordial support of the United States. 
The near proximity of Cuba to the frontier of the United States, and 
the fact that it is universally regarded as a part of the continental sys- 
tem of America, identifies that island so closely with the political and 
commercial welfare of our people, that Congress can not be indifferent 
to the fact that civil war is flagrant among the people of Cuba. 

Nor can we longer overlook the fact that the destructive character of 
this war is doing serious harm to the rights and interests of our people 
on the island, and to our lawful commerce, the protection and freedom 
of which is safeguarded by treaty obligations. In the recent past and 
in former years, when internal wars have been waged for long periods 
and with results that were disastrous to Cuba and injurious to Spain, 
the Government of the United States has always observed, with perfect 
faith, all of its duties toward the belligerents. 

It was a difficult task thus forced upon the United States, but it was 
performed with vigor, impartiality, and justice, in the hope that Spain 
would so ameliorate the condition of the Cuban people as to give them 
X3eace, contentment, and prosperity. This desirable result has not been 
accomplished. Its failure has not resulted from any interference on 
the part of our people or Government with the people or government 
of Cuba. 

The hospitality which our treaties, the laws of nations, and the laws 
of Christianity has extended to Cuban refugees in the United States 
has caused distrust on the part of the Spanish Government as to the 
fidelity of our Government to its obligations of neutrality in the fre- 
quent insurrections of the people of Cuba against Spanish authority. 
This distrust has often become a source of serious annoyance to our 
people, and has led to a spirit of retaliation toward Spanish authority 
in Cuba, thus giving rise to frequent controversies between the two 
countries. The absence of responsible government in Cuba, with 
powers adequate to deal directly with questions between the people of 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 181 

the United States and the people and political authorities of the island, 
has been a frequently recurring cause of delay, protracted imprison- 
ment, confiscations of property, and the detention of our people and 
their ships, often upon groundless charges, which has been a serious 
grievance. 

When insurrections have occurred on the Island of Cuba the temp- 
tation to unlawful invasion by reckless persons has given to our Gov- 
ernment anxiety, trouble, and much expense in the enforcement of our 
laws and treaty obligations of neutrality, and these occasions have 
been so frequent as to make these duties unreasonably onerous upon 
the Government of the United States. 

The devastation of Cuba in the war that is now being waged, both 
with fire and sword, is an anxious and disturbing cause of unrest among 
the people of the United States, which creates strong grounds of pro- 
test against the continuance of the struggle for power between Cuba 
and Spain, which is rapidly changing the issue to one of existence on 
the part of a great number of the native population. 

It is neither just to the relations that exist between Cuba and the 
United States, nor is it in keeping with the spirit of the age or the 
rights of humanity that this struggle should be protracted until one 
party or the other should become exhausted in the resources of men 
and money, thereby weakening both until they may fall a prey to some 
stronger power, or until the stress of human sympathy or the resent 
ments engendered by long and bloody conflict should draw into the 
strife the unruly elements of neighboring countries. 

This civil war, though it is great in its proportions and is conducted 
by armies that are in complete organization and directed and controlled 
by supreme military authority, has not the safeguard of a cartel for 
the treatment of wounded soldiers or prisoners of war. 

In this feature of the warfare it becomes a duty of humanity that 
the civilized powers should insist upon the application of the laws of 
war recognized among civilized nations to both armies. As our own 
people are drawn into this struggle on both sides, and enter either 
army without the consent of our Government and in violation of our 
laws, their treatment when they may be wounded or captured, although 
it is not regulated by treaty and ceases to be a positive care of our 
Government, should not be left to the revengeful retaliations which 
expose them to the fate of pirates or other felons. 

The inability of Spain to subdue her internecine enemies by the 
measures and within the time that would be reasonable when applied 
to occasions of ordinary civil disturbance is a misfortune that can not 
be justly visited upon citizens of the United States, nor can it be con- 
sidered that a state of open civil war does not exist, but that the move- 
ment is a mere insurrection and its supporters a mob of criminal viola- 
tors of the law, when it is seen that it requires an army of 100,000 men 
and all the naval and military power of a great kingdom even to hold 
the alleged rebellion in check. 

It is due to the situation of affairs in Cuba that Spain should recog- 
nize the existence of a state of war in the island, and should volun- 
tarily accord to the armies opposed to her authority the rights of 
belligerents under the laws of nations. 

The Congress of the United States, recognizing the fact that the 
matters herein referred to are properly within the control of the Chief 
Executive until, within the principles of our Constitution, it becomes 
the duty of Congress to define the final attitude of the Government of 



182 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

the United States toward Spain, presents these considerations to the 
President in support of the following resolution : 

Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That the present 
deplorable war in the Island of Cuba has reached a magnitude that concerns all civ- 
ilized nations to the extent that it should be conducted, if unhappily it is longer to 
continue, on those principles and laws of warfare that are acknowledged to be obliga- 
tory upon civilized nations when engaged in open hostilities; including the treat- 
ment of captives who are enlisted in either army; and due respect to cartels for 
exchange of prisoners and for other military purposes; truces and flags of truce, and 
the provision of proper hospitals and hospital supplies and services to the sick and 
wounded of either army : And therefore it is 

Resolved, That this representation of the views and opinions of Congress be sent 
to the President; and if he concurs therein that he will, in a friendly spirit, use the 
good offices of this Government to the end that Spain shall be requested to accord 
to the armies with which it is engaged in war the rights of belligerents, as the same 
are recognized under the laws of nations. 



54th Congress, \ SENATE. ( Document 

1st Session, ] { No. 278. 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRANSMITTING, 

In response to resolution of the Senate of May 16, 1896, relative to the 
rights of the United States, under our treaty with Spain, as to the trial 
of our citizens arrested in Cuba and under condemnation and sentenced 
to death by the Spanish military tribunals for alleged offenses of a 
political or other character against the Spanish laws or Government, a 
report of the Secretary of State, with accompanying papers. 



May 23, 1896. — Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be 

printed. 



To the Senate of the United States : 

I transmit herewith, in response to a resolution of the Senate of the 
16th instant, a report of the Secretary of State, to which are attached 
copies in English and Spanish of the original text of a protocol executed 
January 12, 1877, between the minister plenipotentiary of the United 
States of America to the Court of Spain and the minister of state of 
His Majesty the King of Spain. 

It being in my judgment incompatible with the public service, I am 
constrained to refrain from communicating to the Senate at this time 
copies of the correspondence described in the third paragraph of said 
resolution. 

Gbover Cleveland. 

Executive Mansion, 

Washington, May 23, 1896. 



The President : 

The undersigned, Secretary of State, to whom was referred certain 
resolutions passed by the Senate of the United States on the 16th 
instant, in the following terms: 

Besolved, That the Committee on Foi'eign Relations is directed to inquire and report 
to the Senate what are the rights of the United States, under our treaties with Spain, 
as to the trial of our citizens arrested in Cuba and now under condemnation and 
sentenced to death by the Spanish military tribunals for alleged offenses of a polit- 
ical or other character against the Spanish laws or Government, and to report on that 
subject by bill or otherwise. 

183 



1 84 EIGHTS OF UNITED STATES UNDER TREATY WITH SPAIN. 

2. That the Secretary of State is directed to send to the Senate literal copies of 
the original test of a protocol of conference and declarations concerning judicial 
procedure signed hy Caleb Cushing, as minister of the United States, and SeQor 
Don Fernando y Collantes, minister of the King of Spain, on January twelfth, eight- 
een hundred and seventy-seven, as the same was executed and interchanged, both 
in the English and Spanish languages; and that he will inform the Senate whether 
the established or agreed original text of said protocol is in the English or the 
Spanish language. 

3. That the President is requested, if it is not incompatible with the public service, 
to communicate to the Senate copies of any correspondence that has taken place 
between the Governments of Spain and the United States respecting the said pro- 
tocol and its bearing or effect upon the trial and condemnation of citizens of the 
United States who were recently captured on or near the vessel called the Competitor, 
which was seized under Spanish authority in Cuban waters or near to that island — 

has the lionor to annex herewith literal copies, in English and Spanish, 
of the original text of the protocol referred to in the second paragraph 
of said resolutions, and to report that the original of said protocol is in 
both the English and Spanish languages. 
Bespectfully submitted. 

Bichard Olney. 

Department op State, 

Washington, May 23, 1896. 



Protocol of a Conference held at Madrid on the 12th of January, 1877, 
beticeen the Honorable Caleb Cushing, Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
United /States of America, and His Excellency Sefior Hon Fernando 
C alder on y Collantes, Minister of State of His Majesty the King of Spain. 

The respective parties, mutually desiring to terminate amicably all 
controversy as to the effect of existing treaties in certain matters of 
judicial procedure, and for the reasons set forth and representations 
exchanged in various notes and previous conferences, proceeded to make 
declaration on both sides as to the understanding of the two Govern- 
ments in the premises and respecting the true application of said treaties. 

Seuor Calderon y Collantes declared as follows : 

1. No citizen of the United States residing in Spain, her adjacent 
islands or her ultramarine possessions, charged with acts of sedition, 
treason or conspiracy against the institutions, the public security, the 
integrity of the territory or against the Supreme Government, or any 
other crime whatsoever, shall be subject to trial by any exceptional tri- 
bunal, but exclusively by the ordinary jurisdiction, except in the case 
of being captured with arms in hand. 

2. Those who, not coming within this last case, may be arrested or 
imprisoned, shall be deemed to have been so arrested or imprisoned by 
order of the civil authority for the effects of the Law of April 17, 1821, 
even though the arrest or imprisonment shall have been effected by 
armed force. 

3. Those who may be taken with arms in hand, and who are there- 
fore comprehended in the exception of the first article, shall be tried 
by ordinary council of war, in conformity with the second article of 
the hereinbefore-mentioned Law; bub even in this case the accused 
shall enjoy for their defense the guaranties embodied in the aforesaid 
Law of April 17, 1821. 

4. In consequence whereof, as well in the cases mentioned in the third 
paragraph as in those of the second, the parties accused are allowed to 
name attorneys and advocates, who shall have access to them at suit- 



RIGHTS OF UNITED STATES UNDER TREATY WITH SPAIN. 185 

able times ; they shall be furnished in due season with copy of the accu- 
sation and a list of witnesses for the prosecution, which latter shall be 
examined before the presumed criminal, his attorney and advocate, in 
conformity with the provisions of Articles twenty to thirty-one of the 
said Law; they shall have right to compel the witnesses of whom they 
desire to avail themselves to appear and give testimony or to do it by 
means of depositions; they shall present such evidence as they may 
judge proper; and they shall be permitted to be present and to make 
their defense, in public trial, orally or in writing, by themselves or by 
means of their counsel. 

5. The sentence pronounced shall be referred to the Audiencia of the 
Judicial District, or to the Captain General, according as the trial may 
have taken place before the ordinary Judge or before the council of 
war, in conformity also with what is prescribed in the above-mentioned 
Law. 

Mr. Gushing declared as follows : 

1. The Constitution of the United States provides that the trial of 
all crimes except in cases of impeachment shall be by jury, and such 
trial shall be held in the State where said crimes shall have been com- 
mitted, or wheu not committed within any State the trial will proceed 
in such place as Congress may direct (Art. Ill, Sec. 2); that no person 
shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless 
on presentment of a grand jury except in cases arising in the land and 
naval forces or in the militia when in actual service (Amendments to the 
Constitution, Art. V) ; and that in all criminal prosecutions the accused 
shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury 
of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, 
and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be 
confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process 
for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have counsel for his defense. 
(Amendments to the Constitution, Art. VI.) 

2. The Act of Congress of April 30, 1790, chap. 9, sec. 29, re-enacted 
in the Kevised Statutes, provides that every person accused of treason 
shall have a copy of the indictment and a list of the jury, and of the 
witnesses to be produced at the trial, delivered to him three days before 
the same, and in all other capital cases two days before that takes 
place; that in all such cases the accused shall be allowed to make his 
full defense by counsel learned in the law, who shall have free access 
to him at all seasonable hours; that he shall be allowed in his defense 
to make any proof which he can i)roduce by lawful witnesses, and he 
shall have due power to compel his witnesses to appear in Court. 

3. All these provisions of the Constitution and of Acts of Congress 
are of constant and permanent force, except on occasion of the tempo- 
rary suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 

4. The provisions herein set forth apply in terms to all persons 
accused of the commission of treason or other capital crimes in the 
United States, and therefore, as well by the letter of the law as in virtue 
of existing treaties, the said provisions extend to and comprehend all 
Spaniards residing or being in the United States. 

Seiior Calderon y Collantes then declared as follows: 
In view of the satisfactory adjustment of this question in a manner 
so proper for the preservation of the friendly relations between the 
respective Governments, and in order to afford to the Government of 
the United States the completest security of the sincerity and good 
faith of His Majesty's Government in the premises, command will be 
given by Koyai order for the strict observance of the terms of the 



186 RIGHTS OF UNITED STATES UNDER TREATY WITH SPAIN. 

present Protocol in all the dominions of Spain and specifically in the 
island of Cuba. 
In testimony of which we have interchangeably signed this Protocol. 

Caleb Gushing. 
Ferndo. Calderon y Collantes. 



MlNISTERIO DE ESTADO. 

Protocolo de una conferencia eelebrada en Madrid el dia 12 de Enero de 
1877, entre el Exmo. Sor. Don Fernando Calderon y Collantes, Minis- 
tro de Estado de Su Magestad el Rey de Espaiia, y el Honorable Caleb 
Gushing, Ministro Plenipotenciario de los Estados Unidos de America. 

Las dos partes respectivas mutuamente deseosas de terminar amisto- 
samente toda controversia sobre el efecto de los Tratados vigentes en 
determinados casos de jurisdiccion y procedimientos judiciales, y a 
consecuencia de las razones espuestas y las observaciones cambiadas en 
varias notas y conferencias anteriores, hicieron por ambas Partes 
declaracion de la inteligencia de los dos Gobiernos en la materia y 
acerca de la recta aplicacion de dichos Tratados. 

El Senor Calderon y Collantes declaro lo siguiente: 

1°. Ningun ciudadano de los Estados Unidos residente en Espalia, 
sus Islas adyacentes 6 sus posesiones de Ultramar, acusado de actos de 
sedicion, infidencia 6 conspiracion contra las instituciones, la seguridad 
publica, la integridad del territorio 6 contra el Gobierno supremo, 6 de 
cualquier otro crimen, podra ser sometido a ningun tribunal escepcional, 
sino exclusivamente a la jurisdiccion ordinaria, fuera del caso en que sea 
cogido con las arm as en la mano. 

2°. Los que, fuera de este ultimo caso, sean arrestados 6 presos, se 
considerara que lo han sido de orden de la Autoridad civil para los 
efectos de la Ley de 17 de Abril de 1821, aun cuando el arresto 6 la prision 
se hay a ejecutado por fuerza armada. 

3°. Los que sean cogidos con las armas en la mano, y por tanto esten 
comprendidos en la escepcion del articulo primero seran juzgados en 
consejo de guerrra ordinario, con arreglo al articulo segundo de la citada 
Ley; pero aun en este caso, disfrutaran para su defensa los acusados 
de las garantias consignadas en la citada Ley de 17 de Abril de 1821. 

4°. En su consecuencia, asi en los casos mencionados en el parrafo 
tercero como en los del segundo, se les permitira a los acusados nombrar 
procurador y abogado, que podra comunicar con ellos a cualquiera hora 
propia, se les dara oportunamente copia de la acusacion y una lista de 
los testigos de cargo, los cuales seran examinados ante el presunto reo, 
su j)rocurador y abogado, segun se establece en los articulos veinte al 
treinta y uno de dicha Ley; tendran derecho para compeler a los testi- 
gos de que intenten valerse a que comparezcan a r^restar su declaracion 
6 a que la presten por medio de exhorto ; presentaran las pruebas que 
les convengan y podran estar presentes y hacer en el juicio publico su 
defensa de palabra 6 por escrito, por si mismos 6 j>or medio de su abo- 
gado. 

5°. La sentencia que recaiga se consultara con la Audiencia del terri- 
torio 6 con el Capitan General del distrito, segun el jucio haya sido ante 
el Juez ordinario or ante el Consejo de guerra, con areglo tambien 4 lo 
que en la citada Ley se determina. 

El Senor Gushing declaro lo que sigue: 

1°. La Constitucion de los Estados Unidos consigna que el enjuicia- 



RIGHTS OF UNITED STATES UNDER TREATY WITH SPAIN. 187 

miento para todos los delitos, escopto aquellos de que sean acusados 
altos funcionarios, sor.-'i por el jurado, y tal enjuiciamiento ha de veri- 
ficarse en el Estado donde se liayan cometido dichos delitos 6 crimenes, y 
si estos no fueren cometidos dentro de un Estado, se seguira eljuicio 
en el lugar que designe el Congreso, (Art. Ill, Parragrafo 2°); que 
aadie sera obligado ;i responder por un crimen capital 6 de otro modo 
infamante, sino en virtud de informe del gran jurado, con escepcion de 
los casos que ocurran en las fuerzas de tierra 6 de mar, 6 en la militia, 
cuando este* actualmente de servicio (Enmiendas a la Constitucion, Art. 
V ) ; y que en toda formation de causa criminal disfrutara el acusado del 
derecho a juicio pronto y publico por un jurado imparcial del Estado y 
dial rito donde se haya cometido el crimen, y & que se le de conocimiento 
de la naturaleza y motivo de la acusacion : a ser careado con lost estigos 
de cargo, a valerse de mandamiento u orden imperativa del tribunal 
para obligar a los testigos de que intente valerse a que presten su 
declaration, y a fcener abogado y procurador para su defensa. (Enmienda 
a la Constitucion, Art. VI.) 

2°. El acto del Congreso de 30 de Abril de 1790, cap . 9, sec. 29, 
sancionado de nuevo en los Estatutos Revisados, consigna que a toda 
persona acusada de infidencia le sera facilitada copia de la acusacion, 
con una lista del jurado y de los testigos que ban de presentarse en el 
juicio, tres dias antes que este se celebre, y en todos los demas casos 
capitales, dos dias antes del mismo; que en todos los casos de tal clase 
podra el acusado baeer su amplia defensa por medio de Abogado, quien 
tendra libre comunicacion con el a toda bora propia; que podra en su 
defensa bacer cualquier prueba que pueda presentar por testigos babiles 
y tendra derecbo para compeler a sus testigos a que comparezcan ante 
el Tribunal. 

3°. Todas estas disposiciones de la Constitucion y de los actos del 
Congreso estan constante y permanentemente vigentes, con escepcion 
del caso de ia suspension temporal del Auto de "Habeas Corpus." 

4°. Las disposiciones aqui consignadas se aplican espresamente a 
todas las personas acusadas de infidencia u otros crimenes capitales en 
los Estados Unidos, y por lo tanto, asi segun la letra de la Ley como 
tambien en virtud de los Tratados vigentes, las espresadas disposiciones 
alcanzan y comprenden 4 todos los Espaiioles residentes 6 estantes 
dentro del territorio de los Estados Unidos. 

El Seilor Calderon y Collantes entonces declare lo que sigue : En vista 
del satisfactorio arreglo de esta cuestion de una manera tan propia 
para la conservation de las relaciones amistosas entre los respectivos 
Gobiernos y a fin de dar al G-obierno de los Estados Unidos la mas 
coinpleta seguridad de la sinceridad y buena fe del Gobierno de Su 
Magestad en la materia, se mandara por Eeal Orden la estricta obser- 
vancia del presente Protocolo en todos los dominios de Espafia y par- 
ticularmeute en la Isla de Cuba. En testimonio de lo cual beinos 
firmado alternativamente este Protocolo. 

FERN d0 Calderon y Collantes. 
Caleb Gushing. 



54th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Document 

2d Session. j ( No. 39. 



COEKESPONDENCE CONCERNING THE DEATH OF 
CHARLES GOYIN. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRANSMITTING, 

IN RESPONSE TO A RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE OF DECEMBER 
22, 1896, A REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE, ACCOM- 
PANIED BY COPIES OF CORRESPONDENCE, CONCERNING THE 
DEATH OF CHARLES GOVIN, A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES, 
IN THE ISLAND OF CUBA. 



January 5, 1897. — Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to 

be printed. 



To the Senate: 

I transmit herewith, in response to a resolution of the Senate of the 
22d ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by copies 
of correspondence, concerning the death of Charles Govin, a citizen of 
the United States, in the Island of Cuba. 

Grover Cleveland. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, January 5, 1897. 



The President: 

The Secretary of State, to whoin was referred the resolution of th6 
Senate of December 22, 1896, requesting the President, " if not incom- 
patible with the public interest, to transmit to the Senate such infor- 
mation as the State Department has relating to the death of Charles 
Govin, a citizen of the United States and a newspaper correspondent, 
from violence by the Spanish forces at Corredana, in the Island of 
Cuba," has the honor to lay before the President copies of the corres- 
pondence called for. 

Eichard Olney. 
Department of State, 

Washington, January 4, 1897. 

189 



190 DEATH OF CHARLES GOVIN. 

[Telegram.] 

Mr. Roclchill to Mr. Lee. 

Department of State, 

August 18, 1896. 
Newspaper advices from Key West of 16th state that Charles Govin, 
an American citizen and correspondent, was captured near Jaruco by 
Spanish troops and put to death. Investigate and report by cable. 

Eockhill. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Roclchill. 

Habana, August 19, 1896. 
Charles Govin landed from the Three Friends July 6th ; joined insur- 
gents; captured in a skirmish on the 9th with Arturo Adrian and 
Adolfo Mijares. They were bound and taken off. Nothing heard of 
them since. They are not in the fort nor prisoners. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Roclchill to Mr. Lee. 

Department of State, 

August 20, 1896. 

Replying your cable of yesterday in reference Charles Govin you are 
instructed to demand of Captain-General full information. In case 
Govin still alive insist on his enjoying full treaty rights under para- 
graph 2 or 3 of protocol of 77, as case may be. 



Mr. Lee to the Governor- General of Cuba. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, August 26, 1896. 

Excellency: Having been informed in a communication dated the 
21st August by the Secretary-General that you have referred a previous 
communication concerning the American citizen, Mr. Charles Govin, to 
the Captain-General, who will remit to you the data requested, and in 
order to aid your efforts in this direction, I beg l.o inform your excel- 
lency that I have information which may or may not be correct, but if 
correct, should be followed up in order to secure the necessary informa 
tion as to the fate of Charles Govin. It is certain that the American 
public now believes that Govin was captured, tied, and afterwards killed. 
It seems to me to be the duty of both of us to remove that impression 
if the information upon which it is based is false. 

I hear that Govin was captured in a skirmish on the 9th of July 
between the Spanish troops under General Ochoa and the insurgents 
under Valencia, at a point north of Jaruco and near the coast; that 
the Spanish General Ochoa, having in charge the captured Govin and 



DEATH OF CHARLES GOVIN. 191 

other prisoners, encamped that night, namely, the 9th July, at San 
Matias. I am further told that next morning, the 10th July, Govin, 
bound to two men, named, respectively, Arturo Adrian and Adolfo 
Miyares, was taken off by the infantry portion of Ochoa's command. 
The commanding officer of that detachment is responsible for the 
prisoners of war committed to his care and should be required to pro- 
duce or account for Govin if living, or if not, report the mode and 
manner of his death. 

I take this opportunity to reiterate to your excellency the assurances 
of my most distinguished consideration. 

FitzhuGtH Lee. 



Mr. Adee to Mr. Lee. 

Department of State, 
Washington, August 27, 1896. 
Sir : Your dispatch No. 93, of the 20th instant, relative to the fate 
of Charles Govin, who belonged to the Three Friends expedition, has 
been received, and in reply you are informed that your proposal to make 
a peremptory demand for information concerniDg him is approved by 
the Department. No effort should be spared by you to have this case 
thoroughly investigated. 

I am, etc., Alvey A. Adee, 

Acting Secretary. 



Mr. Bockhill to Mr. Lee. 

Washington, September 5, 1896. 
Sir: The Department has received your dispatch, JSTo. 106, of the 
29th ultimo, with inclosures, relative to the fate of Charles Govin, a 
citizen of the United States, and in reply you are instructed to press 
unremittingly for a full investigation and a report in this matter. 
I am, etc., 

W. W. Bockhill, 

Acting Secretary. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJcMU. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, September 10, 1896. 
Sir : I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your instruction, No. 76, 
directing me to press unremittingly for a full investigation and. report 
as to the fate of Charles Govin, a citizen of the United States. It is 
to be remembered that the Captain- General, in a communication dated 
August 24, stated that said Govin had been wounded in a skirmish 
and had died from said wounds. To that communication I replied 
under date of the 29th of said month to the effect that I was con- 
strained to believe that the information furnished to the Captain-Gen- 
eral was not correct, and requesting that Govin's matter be referred 
back to the commanding officer of the troops engaged, as it is possible 
that he may have confounded the case of some other person with that 



192 DEATH OF CHARLES GOVIN. 

of Charles Govin. Since that I have heard nothing further, but if no 
response is made within the next few days I will again call the attention 
of the Captain-General to the subject. 

I am, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, September 10, 1896. 
Sir: I beg to acknowledge receipt of your instruction, No. 73, of the 
3d instant, transmitting a letter * * * inclosing the affidavit of 

, stating that he was an eye witness of the murder of Mr. Charles 

Govin by Spanish troops. 

The statements contained in the affidavit do not agree with those 
given to my representative, and tend to confuse the manner and mode 

of Govin's death. I am inclined to believe , for he had no object 

in making any such statements and did not volunteer to do so. 
I am, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Roclchill to Mr. Lee. 



Department of State, 

September 15, 1896. 

Your TTo. 123 received. Is answer you expected received ? If not 
press for immediate and satisfactory one. 

EOCKHILL. 



Mr. Lee to Governor- General of Cuba. 

[Translation.] 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, September 15, 1896. 

To His Excellency, the Governor- General of the Island of Cuba: 

Excellency : On the 29th of August last I had the honor to address 
a communication to your excellency in reference to the American citi- 
zen, Charles Govin. To the communication of the date designated no 
reply has been received. 

I am instructed by the Department of State at Washington to press 
for a full investigation and a report on this matter. 

I write, therefore, to ask whether any further investigation and report 
will be made, or whether it is proposed to rest the case, so far as your 
Government is concerned, upon your letter to me of the 24th August, 
in which it was stated that "it appears that in the several exchanges 
of shot had with the rebels at the mountains of San Martin some 
prisoners were made, among whom appeared, wounded, Charles Govin, 
who died in consequence of his wounds." 

I take this occasion, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 



DEATH OF CHARLES GOVIN. 193 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Roclchill. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Eabana, September 18, 1896. 

Sir : I have the honor to submit herewith the translation of an official 
communication from the Spanish Government on this island embody- 
ing a report as to the fate of Mr. Charles Govin, an American citizen, 
from an officer of the Spanish army to Captain-General Weyler, who 
in turn reported it to Governor-General Weyler. The name of the 
officer making the report is not given nor the place where Govin is said 
to have died in consequence of wounds. 

It will be observed that this is a communication in reply to one from 
me to General Weyler dated the 29th of August, a copy of which has 
been duly forwarded to the Department. In that communication I had 
the honor to say that the account of Govin's death was not satisfactory 
and did not conform to the information in my possession. It will be 
seen that the inclosed report of the Captain-General to the Governor- 
General is a reiteration of his former communication. 

####### 

I respectfully submit this matter to the consideration of the Depart- 
ment. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 

[Inclosure in No. 138. — Translation.] 
Governor-General of Cuba to Mr. Lee. 

General Government op the Island op Cuba, 

Office of the Secretary-General, 

Eabana, September 15, 1896. 
To the Consul-General of the United States, Present. 

Sir : His excellency, the Captain-General, reported yesterday to the Governor-Gen- 
eral, as follows: 

" Excellency: His excellency, the general in command of the third brigade of 
the second division of the third corps of the army of this island, nnder date of the 
25th ultimo, reports to me as follows : 

" 'Excellency: In answer to the two respectable communications of your excel- 
lency of the 23d instant, relative to the information requested by the consul-general 
of the United States regarding the American citizen, Mr. Charles Govin, I have the 
honor to inform your excellency that the said person was made a prisoner after hav- 
ing been seriously wounded in the engagement on the 9th of July, which took place 
in the mountains of San Martin, and that he died in consequence of his wounds on 
the following day upon being taken to this place, as I had the honor to inform your 
excellency in the report of said engagement dated July 11, No. 197, in the list of 
prisoners made that day, and consequently the private information furnished to said 
consul is without foundation, or perhaps it has been maliciously furnished by persons 
disaffected to the good name of the Spanish army.'" 

By order of his excellency, I transmit to you the above in answer to your com- 
munication of the 29th ultimo relative to the matter. 

God guard you many years. 

El Marques de Palmeeola. 



Mr. Lee to Governor- General of Cuba. 

[Translation.] 

Consulate-General of the United States, 

Eabana, October 2, 1896. 
Excellency: I duly received your communication of the 18th of 
September, transmitting the report of the chief of the brigade, second 
division, third corps of your army, and I am now directed to itoj %»» 
13 



194 DEATH OF CHARLES GOVIN. 

you that in view of the facts in my Government's possession tending 
to show the killing of Govin after he was taken prisoner, it does not 
consider the report of your subordinate a satisfactory account of his 
death. I will have also to request the name of the officer making the 
report in question as well as the name of the place at which it was 
written, this last seeming to be important because in the said report 
the commander of the brigade states that Govin died in consequence 
of his wounds on the following day after being taken to this place, but 
nowhere is the name of said place stated. 
I take, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee. 



Mr. RocTchill to Mr. Lee. 

Department of State, 
Washington, October 8, 1896. 
Sir: The Department has received your dispatch, No. 160, of the 3d 
instant, with inclosure, relative to the fate of Charles Govin, and in 
reply you are informed that your action in demanding of the Governor 
and Captain General of Cuba the name of the subordinate general who 
made the report of the death of Mr. Govin and the name of the place 
at which it was written, is approved by the Department. 

* # # # * ' # # 

I am, etc., W. W. Kockhill. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Eockhill. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, October 17, 1896. 
Sir: With further reference to my dispatch, No. 160, of the 3d instant, 
and instruction, No. 119, of 8th instant, relative to the case of Charles 
Govin, I have the honor to transmit copy translation of a communica- 
tion from the Governor-General, in which he states the name of the 
officer who reported Govin's death to have been Brig. Gen. Eduardo 
Lopez Ochoa, and the place where said official report was written was 
Jaruco. 

I have, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 

[Inclosure in No. 184.— Translation.] 

Captain- General of Cuba to Mr. Lee. 

Army op the Island of Cuba, Captaincy-General, 

Office of the General Staff, 

Eabana, October 16, 1896. 
In answer to your communication of the 2d instant, I have to inform you that 
the report relative to the death of the citizen of the United States, Mr. Charles 
Govin, which in due season was communicated to you, is dated at Jaruco, and signed 
by the general of Brigade D, Eduardo Lopez Ochoa. 

As the report referred to is official, to which I give full credit, I regret that the 
Government of your nation does not consider it satisfactory, undoubtedly because 
it takes into consideration private reports which, deprived of an official character, 
and perhaps furnished indirectly by enemies of Spain, I understand, should not be 
taken into consideration by a friendly nation. 
God guard yon many years. Valerian© Weyler. 



54th Congress, ) SENATE. c Document 

2d Session. [ } No. 79. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST 

SPAIN. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRANSMITTING, 

IN RESPONSE TO SENATE RESOLUTION OF DECEMBER 15, 1896, 
REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE, SUBMITTING A LIST 
OF CLAIMS FILED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE BY CITI- 
ZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST SPAIN, ARISING OUT 
OF THE INSURRECTION EXISTING IN THE ISLAND OF CUBA, 
AND THE ACCOMPANYING PAPERS RELATING TO THE VESSEL 
CALLED "COMPETITOR" AND THE PERSONS CLAIMING AMERI- 
CAN CITIZENSHIP CAPTURED THEREON. 



January 22, 1897. — Referred to the Committee on Foreign Eolations and ordered to 

be printed. 



To the Senate of the United States : 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of December 15, 1896, 
relating to Cuban affairs, I transmit a report from the Secretary of 
State, submitting a list of the claims filed in the Department of State 
by citizens of the United States against Spain, arising out of the insur- 
rection existing in the Island of Cuba, and the accompanying corre- 
spondence relating to the vessel called the " Competitor" and the persons 
claiming American citizenship captured thereon, which I deem it not 
incompatible with the public interests to communicate. 

Geover Cleveland. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, January 22, 1897. 



The President : 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of the United States of 
December 15, 1896, reading as follows — 

Resolved, That the President is requested, if it is not in his opinion incompatible 
with the public service, to send to the Senate copies of the papers relating to the 
condition of affairs in the Island of Cuba, which are referred to in the report of the 
Secretary of State that accompanies his last annual message as papers collected 
in the annual volume entitled Foreign Relations of the United States. And also a 

195 



196 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 



statement of the several amounts of the claims lodged in the Department of State by 
citizens of the United States against Spain, growing out of the alleged insurrection 
now existing in the Island of Cuba. 

And also all correspondence with the Spanish Government relating to the vessel 
called the Competitor and the persons captured with or near that vessel, with a state- 
ment of the charges pending in any court in Spain or Cuba against said persons, and 
the proceedings of such court in those cases, and the place of their imprisonment, 
the character of their treatment while in prison, and the condition of their health ; 
whether said prisoners have had the privilege of counsel of their own selection on 
any trial that has taken place on such charges, or were represented by any consul, 
attorney, or other agent of the United States — 

the undersigned, Secretary of State, has the honor to submit a list 
of claims filed in the Department of State by citizens of the United 
States against Spain, arising out of the existing insurrection in the 
Island of Cuba, and correspondence relating to the vessel known as the 
Competitor and the persons claiming American citizenship captured 
thereon, with a view to its transmission to the Senate if deemed not 
incompatible with the public interests. 

The preparation of the copies of correspondence called for in the 
first part of the resolution requiring more time than has been found 
necessary in the case of those herewith transmitted, it has been thought 
proper not to delay longer in submitting to you the documents now 
ready. 

Eespectfully submitted. 

ElCHAED OliNEY. 

Department of State, 

Washington, January 22 s 1897, 



I. 



List of claims against Spain, growing out of the insurrection in Cuba, filed in the Depart- 
ment of State, 



Name of claimant. 



Ground of claim. 



Amonnt 
claimed. 



August Bolten 

John D. Ferrer .=... 

Mrs. C.J. Diaz de Clarke 

John F. Java 

JoseYgnacio Toscano 

Pedro Plutarco Ortiz 

F. J. Cazanas 

Jose G. and Jose M. Delgado 

Jose Antonio Yznaga 

Ricardo Machado 

Francisco Seiglie 

Jose Rafael de les Reyes y Garcia and wife. 

Frederick P. Montes 

George L. Lay 

Andres L. Terry 

John A. Sowers 

Perfecto Lacosti 

Wm. A. and Louis M. Glean 

Wm. A. Glean 

Louis M. Glean 

Whiting &Co 

Mrs. A. L. Whiting 

J. B. Carillo de Albornoz 

Ignacio Larrondo 

Cristobal N. Madan 

Antonio A. Martinez 

Joaquin P. Cruz and wife 

George W. Hyatt 

Manuel A. R. Morales 

Peter Dominguez 

Teresa Joerg 



Arrest and imprisonment. 

do 

Property losses 

do 



.do. 

.do 

.do 

.do. 

.do 

.do 

-d* 

.do 

.do 

.do 

.do 



Arrest, imprisonment, and expulsion . 

Property losses 

Imprisonment 

Property losses 

...do 



.do 
-do 
.do 
-do 



Property losses and personal injuries. 

Property losses 

do 

do 

do 

Expulsion 

Property losses 



$10, 
25, 
116, 

90, 
15, 
84, 
39, 
178, 
156, 
64, 
778, 
729, 
160, 



000. 00 
000. 00 
335. 00 
585. 00 
000. 00 
000. 00 
843. 00 
534. 00 
500. 00 
900. 00 
510. 00 
161. 00 
000. 00 



334, 

200, 

652, 

150, 

4, 

7, 

60, 

17, 

36, 

129, 

88, 

35, 

70, 

285, 

275, 

10, 

2, 



(a) 



905. 00 
000. 00 
900. 00 
000. 00 
668. 00 
547. 00 
240. 00 
000. 00 
000. 00 
472. 38 
000. 00 
000. 00 
000. 00 
490. 54 
000. 00 
000. 00 
500. 00 



o Value of horse. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 
List of claims against Spain, etc. — Continued. 



197 



Name of claimant. 



James A. Glean 

Peter S. Rodriguez 

Antonio M. Jimenez 

Pedro C. Casanova 

Do 

Walter G. Dygert 

Frederick A. Libbey 

Jose M. Caraballo 

Do 

Angel Gronlier 

Albert V. de Goicouria 

Rosa A. Maragliano 

Juana M. C. do Maragliano , 

J.de Armas y Armas , 

Maximo M. Diaz 

Wm. W. Gay 

Thomas R. Dawley 

George Fortier 

L. F. Marejon y Marquez 

Wm. G. Thome 

M. D. J. Garcia y Pino, executrix, etc 

Manuel Prieto 

Gustave Richelieu 

Miguel de la Vega y Gener 

J. Sanchez y Coba 

F. J. Terry y Dorticas 

J. C. de Albornoz O'Farrill 

A. C. de Albornoz O'Farrill 

Heine Safety Boiler Co 

R. M. y de la Cruz 

Francisco Rionda (Central Tuiuucu Sugar 
Cane Manufacturing Co). 

Charles Rosa 

Rabel & Co 

Joseph M. Duenos 

P.P. de Leon 

J. F. deCossio 

Peter E. Rivery 

Samuel T. Tolon 

Do 

Adolphns Torres 

A. L. Terry y Dorticos and A. E. Terry 

A. E. Terry 

Frederick L. Craycraft 

Thomas E. Rodriguez 

Oscar Giguel 

Jose Tur 

Adolfo Santa Maria 

Enrequit a Santa Maria , 

Joseph M. Fernandez 

George Becket 

Manuel F. Lopez 

Adolfo Torres 



Ground of claim. 



Property losses 

do 

do 

do 

Personal injuries 

Arrest and imprisonment. 

Property losses 

do 

Arrest, imprisonment, etc. 

Property losses 

do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Expulsion 

Arrest, imprisonment, etc. 

Property losses 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Imprisonment 

Property losses 

do 



.do 
.do 

.do 
.do 

.do 

.do 



do 

do 

do 

do 

do 

Personal inj uries 

do....'. 

Property losses 

Imprisonment 

Property losses 

do 

Personal injuries 

Property losses, banishment, etc. 

Property losses 

do 



.do . 
.do 
.do 
.do 



Killing of son, S. N. Lopez. 
Arrest and imprisonment. 



Amount 
claimed. 



$28, 425. 00 
40, 796. 00 
19, 158. 45 
40, 400. 00 
40, 000. 00 

100,000.00 
23,166.00 
90, 470. 00 
60, 000. 00 
34, 779. 00 

130, 000. 00 
30, 000. 00 
25, 000. 00 
69, 525. 00 
10, 000. 00 
25,000.00 

100, 000. 00 
32, 450. 00 

15, 000. 00 
25,000.00 

200, 000. 00 
58, 850. 00 

(a) 
71,683.00 

16, 290. 00 
202, 952. 50 
106, 105. 49 
130,703.12 

27,316.80 

(6) 

527, 480. 20 



840. 00 
785. 00 
000. 00 
, 000. 00 
, 000. 00 
(c) 

000. 00 
000. 00 
000. 00 
, 888. 00 
, 500. 00 
000. 00 
, 000. 00 
, 000. 00 
, 500. 00 
, 803. 32 
953. 32 
, 115. 61 
, 000. 00 
, 000. 00 
, 000. 00 



a A fair indemnity. 



b Not stated. 
II. 



e Suitable indemnity. 



CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO THE COMPETITOR. 

List of papers relative to the " Competitor" and the persons claiming American citizenihif 

captured thereon. 



Mr. Williams to Mr. RoeMiill, April 30, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 1, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, May 1, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill, May 1, 1896. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Williams, May 1, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill, May 2, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 2, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 2, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 2, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockliill, No. 2940, May 2, 1896, 



198 CLAIMS OP CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, May 4, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill, No. 2946, May 5, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 6, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 6, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 7, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 7, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 8, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 8, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 8, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 8, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 9, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 9, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 9, 1896. 

Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Williams, No. 1362, May 11, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 11, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill, No. 2968, May 11, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 11, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, No. 510, May 11, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, May 11, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 12, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 13, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, May 16, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill, No. 2987, May 21, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill, No. 2988, May 21, 1896. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill, No. 2996, May 23, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, June 16, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, June 30, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 50, July 14, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 79, August 11, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 90, August 19, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, September 3, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, September 4, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, September 8, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 118, September 9, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 190, October 21, 1896. 

Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, No. 152, October 28, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 211, November 12, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 212, November 14, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 220, November 18, 1896. 

Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Springer, No. 165, November 19, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 223, November 20, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 226, November 23, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, November 26, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 234, November 26, 1896, 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 246, December 3, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 251, December 5, 1896. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Rockhill, No. 260, December 15, 1896. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill. 

Habana, April 30, 1896. 
The American schooner Competitor, from Key West, with part of the 
crew, was captured near San Cayetano, to the westward, while, it is 
alleged, landing arms for the insurgents, and towed here yesterday. 
The case subject to marine jurisdiction. I have seen admiral, who tells 
me it is now under examination of the judge of instruction. I have 
verbally asked for observance, as heretofore, of the protocol in the trial 
of the Americans among them, and I shall confirm it in writing. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 199 

[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 1, 1896. (Eeceived 3 p. m.) 
Urgent. Please instruct the United States minister at Madrid to 
request Madrid Government to instruct Captain-General to observe 
strictly the protocol in the trial of American citizens found on board 
Competitor, 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

Department of Stat^, 

Washington, May 1, 1896. 
Urge Spanish foreign office to at once instruct Captain- General Cuba 
to strictly observe protocol applicable to trial of American citizens found 
on board Competitor. This cable sent at instance of Consul-General 
Williams. Cable result. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. RockMll. 

Habana, May 1, 1896—11 p. m. 

Urgent. As the marine jurisdiction has cognizance of the Competitor 
and persons captured on board, I have delivered to-day personally a 
communication to the admiral, asking that the case be tried under 
seventh article, 1795, and the protocol therein, protesting against trial 
by summary court-martial or any form of procedure not adjusted to the 
treaties. Admiral received me most courteously, but seemed to hold 
the opinion that the case does not come under any treaty of Spain with 
the United States, because lirst article of the protocol says "citizens of 
the United States residing in Spanish dominions," and these men do 
not reside therein. I replied that the protocol is contained in the 
seventh article of the treaty of 1795, and there is nothing therein 
making residence of American citizens within Spanish dominions or 
Spanish subjects in the United States a condition necessary to entitle 
either of them to the enjoyment of all its guaranties. 

Please to instruct by cable. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Roclchill to Mr. Williams. 

Washington, May 1, 1896. 
Was Ambrose Urbach, of Key West, among prisoners captured on 
schooner Competitor f 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Roclchill. 

Habana, May 3, 1896. 
Can not say if Urbach was on board Competitor, my request to see 
prisoners and their names being yet refused. 



200 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams. 

Washington, May 2, 1896. 
Yours of yesterday respecting Competitor passengers received and 
acted upon. What is situation to-day? Cable. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 2, 1896. 
"So change in situation Competitor passengers. I have received answer 
to my communication from acting admiral saying chief admiral cruising, 
but has been informed by him of the case and is expected to return 
immediately, when my communication will be answered. Meanwhile no 
procedure will be taken in prejudice to the rights of the American 
citizens. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams. 

Washington, May 2, 1896. 
If your position is that Competitor passengers must be tried by the 
regular marine tribunal having jurisdiction in the like cases, a*id not by 
special court-martial, your position is approved and you are instructed 
to insist upon it. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. RoclcJiill. 

No. 2940.] Habana, May 2, 1896. 

Sir: Referring to my dispatches Nos. 2933 of the 30th ultimo and 
2934 and 2938 of the 1st and 2d instant, respectively, relating to the 
capture of the American schooner Competitor, with several persons on 
board, while, as is alleged, landing arms and ammunition for the insur- 
gents, near San Cayetano, on the north coast of Cuba, to the westward 
of Habana, I have now the honor to inclose copy, with translation, 
of the communication dated the 30th ultimo, which, as I cabled on 
the same day and yesterday evening, I delivered into the hands of the 
admiral of the Spanish West Indian naval station, asking that the 
American citizens found on board be tried in accordance with the terms 
of the seventh article of the treaty of 1795, and protesting, in the name 
of the Government of the United States, against their trial by summary 
court-martial or by any other form of procedure not adjusted to the 
terms of the treaty. 

As mentioned in my cablegram of last evening, the admiral expressed 
himself conversationally as holding the opinion that as these men were 
not residents of the Spanish dominions they did not come, therefore, 
under the treaty engagements between Spain and the United States. 
I an swered thi s, in substance, that article 7 of the treaty of 1795 embraced 
American citizens and Spanish subjects in general and excluded none, 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 201 

and that no one of its parts could be annulled by the protocol, such as 
excluding from the enjoyment of its guaranties American citizens not 
residing, in the sense of domiciliation, within the Spanish dominions, 
nor Spanish subjects not residing within those of the United States. 
In this understanding of the treaty I shall continue to act unless other- 
wise instructed by the Department. 

I beg to inclose a copy (with translation) of a communication received 
to-day from the admiral acknowledging receipt of mine of the 30th 
ultimo. 

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Ramon O. Williams, 

Consul- General. 



[Inclosure No. 1, with dispatch No. 2940, Habana, May 2, 1896.] 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, April 30, 1896. 

Excellency: The fact of the seizure and bringing into this port of the American 
schooner Competitor, of Key West, Fla., with several persons on board, by a Spanish 
man-of-war, and of the subjection of the vessel and persons for trial to the tribunals 
of the marine jurisdiction of this island, having reached the knowledge of this 
consulate-general, and it being natural to suppose that these persons are either all 
or in part citizens of the United States, and having no exact information of the 
causes and the charges justifying their subjection to the said tribunals; therefore, 
and in conformity with instructions, I have to ask your excellency to please inform 
me at your earliest convenience of the specific charges against this American vessel, 
as likewise against the persons, with names of the latter, that I may at once transmit 
the information to my Government. 

Also, in compliance with the same instructions, I have to cite as strictly applying 
to the trial of these persons the terms of article 7 of the treaty of October 27, 1795, 
between the United States and Spain, which says : 

"The citizens and subjects of both parties shall be allowed to employ such advo- 
cates, solicitors, notaries, agents, and factors as they may judge proper in all their 
affairs and in all their trials at law in which they may be concerned before the tri- 
bunals of the other party ; and such agents shall have free access to the proceedings 
in such cases, and at the taking of all examinations and evidence which may he 
exhibited in the said trials." 

In consequence, I have to ask your excellency for the strict observance of these 
stipulations in the trial of the said persons, as was confirmed and agreed upon between 
the two Governments in the protocol of the 12th of January, 1877, for the amicable 
termination of all controversy as to the effect of existing treaties in certain matters 
of judicial procedure, and with respect to the application of the said treaties in the 
trial of citizens of the United States within the domiuion of Spain, which reads as 
follows : 

"1. No citizen of the United States residing in Spain, her adjacent islands, or her 
ultramarine possessions, charged with acts of sedition, treason, or conspiracy against 
the institutions, the public security, the integrity of the territory, or against the 
supreme Government, or any other crime whatsoever, shall be subject to trial by any 
exceptional tribunal, but exclusively by the ordinary jurisdiction, except in the case 
of being captured with arms in hand. 

"2. Those who, not coming within this last case, may be arrested or imprisoned, 
shall be deemed to have been so arrested or imprisoned by order of the civil author- 
ity for the effects of the law of April 17, 1821, even though the arrest or imprison- 
ment shall have been effected by armed force. 

"3. Those who may be taken with arms in hand, and who are therefore compre- 
hended in the exception of the first article, shall be tried by ordinary council of 
war, in conformity with the second article of the hereinbefore-mentioned law; but 
even in this case the accused shall enjoy for their defense the guaranties embodied 
in the aforesaid law of April 17, 1821. 

"4. In consequence whereof, as well in the cases mentioned in the third paragraph 
as in those of the second, the parties accused are allowed to name attorneys and 
advocates, who shall have access to them at suitable times; they shall be furnished 
in due season with copy of the accusation and a list of witnesses for the prosecu- 
tion, which latter shall be examined before the presumed criminal, his attorney and 
advocate, in conformity with the provisions of articles 20 to 31 of the said law; 



202 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

they shall have the right to compel the witnesses of whom they desire to avail 
themselves to appear and give testimony or to do it by means of depositions; they 
shall present such evidence as they may judge proper, and they shall be permitted 
to present and to make their defense, in public trial, orally or in writing, by 
themselves or by means of their counsel. 

"5. The sentence pronounced shall be referred to the audiencia of the judicial 
district, or to the Captain-General, according as the trial may have taken place 
before the ordinary judge or before the council of war, in conformity also with what 
is prescribed in the above-mentioned law." 

For the reasons above expressed, and in view of the jurisprudence already estab- 
lished by the civil and military courts of this island since the 12th of January, 1877, 
date of the mutual understanding between the two Governments as to the applica- 
tion of their treaties in cases of this nature, I can not less than expect that the 
marine courts will also strictly observe the said article 7 and the protocol, granting 
to the persons now accused the enjoyment of all the means of defense therein 
stipulated. 

And it being agreed between the two Governments under article 3 of the above 
inserted protocol that those American citizens who may be taken with arms in hand 
shall be tried by ordinary council of war, I must, therefore, protest in the name of 
my Government against the trial of these American citizens by summary court- 
martial, because of this method being excluded from the protocol, as I also protest 
against every form of procedure not adjusted to the treaty. 
I am, etc., 

Eamon O. Williams, 

Consul- General. 

The Admiral of the Spanish West Indian Squadron, etc. 



[Inclosure No. 2, with dispatch No. 2940, Habana, May 2, 1898.— Translation.] 

Office of the Admiral of the Spanish West Indian Squadron, 

Habana, May 1, 1896. 
Sir : I have i^xe, honor to acknowledge the receipt of your courteous communication 
of yesterday's date, personally delivered by you to-day at 2 p. m., and to inform you 
that the case of the seizure of the schooner Competitor being under indictment proceed- 
ings (en sumario), it is not possible to answer at present your said communication nor 
your note relating to same; but I promise to do so at the earliest convenience. 
I am, etc., 

P. A. Jose Gomez Imaz. 
The Consul-General of the United States. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

Madrid, May 4, 1896. 
Telegraphic orders sent Cuba suspending all executive action until 
examination can be made as to all taken upon Competitor who may 
prove to be American citizens. 



Mr. Williams to Mr. Roclchitt. 

No. 2946.] Habana, May 5, 1896. 

Sir: In continuation of my dispatches Nos. 2933, 2934, and 2938, of 
the 30th ultimo and 1st and 2d instant, in relation to the capture of the 
American schooner Competitor, with several persons on board, near 
San Oayetano, on the north coast of this island, to the westward of 
Habana, I now have the honor to inclose for the information of the 
Department a copy, with translation, of the answer of the acting 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 203 

admiral of this naval station to my communication addressed him on 
the 30th instant in relation to this affair. 

It will be noticed that the acting admiral informs me that the admi- 
ral in chief is absent from Habana on a cruise, and that as soon as he 
returns he will take under consideration and decide upon the several 
particulars presented in my said communication of the 30th ultimo, 
with the assurance that no essential determination will be taken in 
the meantime to the detriment of the rights of the American citizens 
engaged in this affair. 

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Eamgn O. Williams, 

Consul- General. 



[Tnelosnre No. 1, with dispatch No. 2946, Habana, May 5, 1896.— Translation.) 

Commandancy-General of Marine and of the Spanish Naval 

Station of the West Indies, Office of the General Staff, 

Habana, May 2, 1896. 
Sir: His excollency the commanding general of this station and squadron, to 
whom the exercise of the marine jurisdiction belongs in this island and that of 
Puerto Eico, being absent from the seat of government, there is no legal medium 
present through which to reply, in view of their judicial character, to any of the 
points to which your respectable official note of the 30th of April last refers. 

The said authority having been informed by me of the capture of the schooner 
said to be called the Competitor, I am expecting his immediate return, and as soon 
as this occurs he will decide upon all the particulars treated of by you, my powers 
being limited to the inspection of the proceedings which are being carried on, in 
conformity with the provisions of the law of organization and attributions of the 
marine courts, and to assure you that in the meantime no essential determination 
will be taken in detriment to the rights of any citizen of the nation which you so 
worthily represent. 

I have the honor to communicate the above to you in amplification of my commu- 
nication to you of yesterday. 

God guard you mauy years. 

Jose Gomez Imas, 
Second in Command of this Naval /Station, 
The Consul-General of the United States of America. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olmey to Mr. Williams, 

Washington, May 6, 1896. 
Report by cable upon present status of Competitor case. Give names 
of prisoners claiming to be American citizens. 



[Telegram.) 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 6, 1896. 
Tour telegram received. I have seen acting admiral, who tells me 
the examination of Competitor proceedings will be finished to-day and 
that admiral commanding is expected to arrive to-night, when my com- 
munication of the 30th ultimo in which I have asked the names of 
American citizens and permission to see them will be answered. 



204 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 7, 1896. 
I have received 5 o'clock p. m. from admiral commanding the answer 
to my communication of the 30th in regard to the American citizens 
captured on Competitor. He replies seventh article of the treaty 1795 
and the protocol do not apply to them as they are not residents in 
accordance with law relating to foreigners and they are to be tried 
by summary court martial. I am preparing answer and protest in 
accordance with your telegram 2d instant. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams. 

Washington, May 7, 1896. 
Competitor case. Informed officially that only one American citizen 
was taken and is now under arrest. If possible, report by cable, who 
and where he is, on what charges held and how treated. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams. 

Washington, May 8, 1896. 
Competitor case. Did American citizens have fair trial, with oppor- 
tunity to summon and examine witnesses, and to be defended by coun- 
sel of their own selection, and with all other legal guarantees. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 8, 1896. 
I have seen prisoners this morning. Laborde, captain Competitor, tells 
me was born New Orleans and formerly was deputy sheriff Tampa. 
Was going Lemon City with twenty four passengers when they seized 
the vessel by force, putting pistol to his breast, and took command. 
Off Cape Sable took on board twenty-three men more. William Gil- 
dea, mate, born Liverpool, England ; Ona Milton, born Kansas. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 8, 1896. 
In case of Competitor, trial terminated. Prosecuting officer asks 
penalty death for all, giving precedence to the local law relating to for- 
eigners over the treaty and the protocol in this case. As the court and 
authorities here agree on this point, I inform you for such diplomatic 
action you may deem prosper. I am preparing remonstrance Captain- 
General as the superior delegate of Spain in this island. 



CLAIMS OP CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 205 

[Telegram. 1 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 8, 1896. 
Competitor American citizens have not had opportunity to summon 
and examine witnesses and to be defended by counsel of their own 
selection. For their defeuse their only counsel at the trial was a Span- 
ish naval officer. Captain-general and admiral both contend that they 
are not embraced in the treaty because not residents Spanish territory, 
therefore outlaws, and have been tried for piracy and rebellion, conse- 
quently have not had fair trials under the treaty. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, 

Washington, May 9, 1896. 
Has death sentence been imposed? When is it to be executed % 
Dupuy claims Milton is the only American citizen. How is it as to 
Laborde and Gildea 1 ? 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney, 

Habana, May 9 y 1896. 

Milton undoubtedly is a native-born citizen. Laborde says he was 
born in New Orleans; Gildea, in England. However, one being mas- 
ter and the other mate of an American vessel entitles them to protec- 
tion of the United States under paragraph 171 Consular Regulations, 
based on statutes, and were, therefore, entitled to be tried under seventh 
article of the treaty and in accordance with fourth article of the protocol, 
allowing them to name attorneys and advocates with all other men- 
tioned guarantees, instead of which they have only had a naval officer 
for their defense. Death sentence asked for by prosecutor not yet 
imposed, but executions twelve hours afterwards is customary. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams, 

Washington, May 9, 1896, 
Have urged upon Spanish Government, through Dupuy and our min- 
ister at Madrid, that recent Havana court-martial sentences upon 
American citizens should not be executed until this Government is sat- 
isfied that it ought not to interpose, for which purpose it needs and 
asks record of proceedings of court, charges, evidence, and should be 
officially informed what opportunities of defense defendants had through 
counsel of their own choice, examination and summoning of witnesses, 
and otherwise. Make same representations and request to governor- 
general, urging that request of United States, which would be proper 



206 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

in any case, is specially so in view of the extremely questionable juris- 
diction of the court-martial, which can be justified only by a new, 
strained, technical construction of treaty stipulations and which is con- 
trary to their spirit, to their fair interpretation, and to the intent of the 
parties at the time they were entered into, as clearly shown by their 
correspondence. 



Mr, Rockhill to Mr. Williams. 

No. 1362.] Washington, May 11, 1896. 

Sir: The Department has received your dispatch No. 2940, of the 
2d instant, with inclosures, relative to the capture of the American 
schooner Competitor. 

I am, etc., W. W. Eookhell. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 11, 1896. 
Admiral has advised consul-general of Great Britain that Madrid 
Government has ordered suspension of effects of the Competitor pro- 
ceedings and their transmission to supreme council, Madrid. 



Mr. Williams to Mr. Rockhill. 

No. 2968.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 11, 1896. 
Sir : I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the Department's telegram 
of the 9th instant. * * * 

In consequence I addressed a communication to the governor and 
captain-general in the same sense almost word for word. 
I am, etc., 

Bamon O. Williams. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 11, 1896. 
Admiral having adhered to opinion of the judge-advocate making 
treaty subordinate local law for trial Competitor men and haviyg twice 
rejected my protests against the procedure, I addressed captain-gen- 
eral, on the 8th instant, declining in him, as the superior delegate of 
the authority of the King of Spain, the responsibility of the conse- 
quences, and he has advised me that he has informed Government of 
His Majesty of my protests; but meantime I learn from good source 
that the men have been sentenced to death, notwithstanding the pro- 
ceedings show they were captured without arms in hand. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 207 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

No. 510.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, May 11, 1896. 
Sin: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram 
of the 9th instant, as follows: 

Make immediate representations to Spanish Government that United States con- 
ceives it to he its right and duty to insist that conrt-martial sentences just imposed 
at Hahana upon American citizens shall not he executed until this Government has 
opportunity to become satisfied that ite interposition is not warranted. To enahle 
it to reach a conclusion in the matter, it should have and now asks record of proceed- 
ings of court, charges and evidence, and should know what opportunity defendants 
had to defend themselves by counsel, of their own choice, and by examination and 
summoning of witnesses. United States would be entitled to insist upon such 
request, with the necessary reasonable delay in any case, but is especially so entitled 
in the present case, where the jurisdiction of the court-martial is extremely doubtful 
and can be justified only by a new strained technical construction of treaty stipula- 
tions, such being contrary to their spirit, to their fair interpretation, and to the 
intent of tbe parties at the time they were entered into, as clearly shown by their 
correspondence. Call particular attention to the words in article 4 of the protocol, 
"all Spaniards being in the Uuited States," as well as "residing" there. It is 
inconceivable that residence as a condition to the advantages of protocol was 
required in one case and not in the other. Ask for an immediate answer to request 
that execution of court-martial sentences be postponed for reasons and with pur- 
poses stated. 

I at once obtained an interview with the minister of state, in which I 
presented to him your telegram, together with the following observa- 
tions in the way of argument: 

In my opinion it is certain that the protocol of 1877 is not limited, upon a reason- 
able construction, to citizens of the United States residing in Spanish territory, for 
the conclusive reason that the benefits of American law are extended to all Spaniards 
"being" in the United States, although they may not be residents there. To dis- 
pute that construction is to deny to the protocol mutuality. That point settled, it 
is certain that, even conceding for the sake of argument that the American citizens 
in question were taken with arms in their hands, and for that reason triable by a 
council of war, they are nevertheless entitled to all the benefits of section 4 of the 
protocol, which reads as follows: 

"In consequence whereof, as well in the cases mentioned in the third paragraph 
as in those of the second, the parties accused are allowed to name attorneys and 
advocates, who shall have access to them at suitable times. They shall be furnished 
in due season with copy of the accusation and a list of witnesses for the prosecution, 
which latter shall be examined before the presumed criminal, his attorney and advo- 
cate, in conformity with the provisions of articles twenty to thirty-one of the said 
law ; they shall have right to compel the witnesses of whom they desire to avail 
themselves to appear and give testimony or to do it by means of depositions ; they 
shall present such evidence as they may judge proper, and they shall be permitted to 
be present and to make their defense in public trial, orally or in writing, by them- 
selves or by means of their counsel." 

My Government has therefore in any case the right to demand an inspection of the 
record of the proceedings of the council of war in order to determine whether or no 
the accused have been given all the benefits of section 4 of the protocol. 

The minister promptly gave a favorable response to your request, 
which I reported to you in the following telegram: 

Presented your request, with argument, based on terms protocol. Minister of state 
promptly replied all executive action suspended by order given under promise made 
me 3d instant. Entire record will be ordered Madrid for review by supreme council 
war and marine. When there, Government can control record, copy of which will be 
furnished you for inspection prior to execution in the event supreme council should 
hold proceedings to have been regular. 

The newspapers of this morning say that the review of this case by 
the supreme council of war and marine will involve a delay of at least 
two months. 

I am, etc, Hannis Taylob, 



208 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Williams. 

Washington, May 11, 1896. 
Competitor case. Execution of death sentences upon American citi- 
zens suspended pending diplomatic consideration of their rights under 
treaty and protocol. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 12, 1896. 
Urgent. The afternoon newspapers report that two American citi- 
zens, Charles Barnett and William Leavitt, captured on land, forming 
part of the Competitor expedition, are to be tried by ordinary court- 
martial of the marine jurisdiction. I beg that immediate instruction 
be given to our legation, Madrid, to ask suspension of the effects of the 
trial until our Government can be satisfied it is in conformity with the 
treaty, for I apprehend the condition of the treaty will not be observed. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 13, 1896. 
In reply to my yesterday's communication, asking for the application 
of the treaty and protocol to the trial, two Americans, Competitor crew, 
and suspension of execution in case of death sentence until I could 
inform you, Captain-General advises me officially that American citi- 
zens are tried according to the treaty between Spain and the United 
States, and further that no death sentence will be executed without 
approval of His Majesty's Government. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Williams to Mr. Olney. 

Habana, May 16, 1896. 
I am preparing correspondence relating to the Competitor case which 
is voluminous and important, mostly in Spanish, which I am translat- 
ing. Can not be transmitted before next week. 



Mr. Williams to Mr. BockTiill. 

No. 2987.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 21, 1896. 
Sir: In continuation of my dispatches in relation to Alfred Laborde, 
William Gildea, and Ona Melton, captured by a Spanish gunboat on 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN, 209 

board the American schooner Competitor and tried at 8.30 o'clock of the 
morning of the 8th instant, at the arsenal of this port by the naval 
authorities, under the form of procedure known here as the most sum- 
mary process (juicio sumarisimo), I now have the honor to accompany 
translations of the correspondence had since the 7th instant between 
the authorities and this consulate-general on the subject. 

The first communication forming part of this correspondence in the 
order of reference and consideration is that addressed to me on the 7th 
instant by the admiral of the station. It is made up wholly of the 
opinion, adverse to my remonstrance, of the judge-advocate to whom 
my two communications of the 30th ultimo were referred in consulta- 
tion. It will be seen that the admiral adheres to and approves of this 
opinion. In it the judge-advocate assumes: 

First. That the specification of the charges against these men, that 
I had asked for in my first communication of the 30th, could be fur- 
nished me in reference to the friendly relations existing between the 
two countries. I must observe, however, that the trial of these men 
took place within the short time of fifteen hours after this offer, with 
the night intervening; and, that notwithstanding the men have been 
tried and condemned to death, that the specific charges have not yet 
been furnished me for transmission to you. 

Second. That with respect to the list of the names of the men, the 
judge-advocate tells the admiral that there was reason to suppose that 
Melton was the only American citizen on board. But I must here 
observe, too, that, as there was reason to believe that Laborde was the 
master, and Gildea the mate, according to paragraph 171 of the Con- 
sular ^Regulations, based on statute, and the fact of the vessel being 
American, the flag covered them. In consequence, it became my duty 
and right to interpose in their favor. 

Third. The judge-advocate assumes that neither article 7 of the 
treaty of the 27th of October, 1795, nor the protocol of 1877, invoked 
by me, apply to the case in question. Because, as he further assumes, 
foreigners must be tried by the same courts having cognizance in all 
affairs of Spanish subjects, in accordance with the local law relating to 
foreigners of the 4th of July, 1870. And at this point I beg to remark 
that the judge-advocate subordinates the treaty to the local law instead 
of giving precedence to the treaty as a part of the supreme law of 
Spain. 

Fourth. He also assumes that whatever interpretation and scope may 
be given to the treaty and the protocol construing it, that the latter from 
the beginning embraces only resident American citizens. But against 
this assumption I beg to state that article 7 of the treaty of 1795 
imposes no condition of residence either on Spanish subjects in the 
United States nor American citizens in the dominions of Spain; for, 
were it so, then the status of Spanish subject and of American citizen 
would betaken away from thousands of Spaniards and Americans who 
visit both countries every year either on business or pleasure, as mer- 
chants, manufacturers, tradesmen, travelers, and tourists. 

Besides, the protocol can not detract any force from the treaty as 
understood by the President and Senate of the United States, who have 
sanctioned it; and not being yet revoked it continues in force as the 
matrix of the protocol. It is clear, therefore, that the protocol must 
conform to the treaty and not the treaty to the protocol. But even 
then, the protocol'explicitly mentions, in the declaration of Mr. Cush- 
ing, all Spaniards residing or being in the United States, and conversely, 

14 



210 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

in the sense of article 7, should embrace all Americans either residing 
or being in the Spanish dominions. 

Fifth. The assumption that foreigners must be inscribed at the pro- 
vincial governments and at their respective consulates in accordance 
with article 7 of the local law relating to them can not be maintained, 
for it would be equivalent to dej)riving them of their rights of nation- 
ality and of the protection of their respective Governments, a doctrine 
that no Government will admit, not even that of the judge-advocate, to 
whose opinion on these several points the admiral adheres and approves. 

Sixth. It is also erroneously assumed by the judge-advocate that the 
law of the 17th of April, 1821, is derogated by Spanish laws of subse- 
quent enactment — that is to say, that a treaty as an international con- 
tract can be derogated by either party at pleasure by local legislation 
or decretal action — a most dangerous doctrine indeed for the friendly 
intercourse and peace of nations. 

Seventh. The judge-advocate also contends that the jurisprudence 
established here under the treaty and protocol since 1877, in such cases 
as that of Eosell, at Santiago de Cuba, Mayolin, at Santa Clara, San- 
guily, Aguirre, Carrillo, and Cepero, at Havana, forms no precedent in 
these cases of Melton, Laborde, and Gildea — that is, that the naval 
jurisdiction has a distinct and exceptional authority in cases coming 
under its jurisdiction to that possessed by the military and civil powers 
by which those other cases were tried. 

In reference to the passage on page 2 of the admiral's communica- 
tion to me of the 9th instant, wherein the judge- advocate calls atten- 
tion in the sense of amplitude, to the term of ten days having been 
employed in substantiating and trying this case, I have to say : That the 
time thus gained for the defense was accidental and not intentional, 
and was owed entirely to the temporary absence of the admiral in com- 
mand who was then on a cruise at the eastern end of the island, and 
that had he been present at the time of the bringing of the men to this 
port, there are reasons to believe that they would have been tried and 
sentenced within the next twenty-four hours. 

I beg also to observe that during the civil war in the United States 
it was a very common thing for vessels loaded with arms and munitions 
of war to leave the ports of Habana and Nassau and land their cargoes 
in the Southern States ; but I know of no case in which parties inter- 
cepted and arrested by the Federal authorities were ever deprived of the 
right to name counsel of their own choice and to be sentenced to death 
by most summary process, as has been done in this case with the men 
captured on board the American schooner Competitor. 

In conclusion, I beg to say that copies are also accompanied of my 
answer dated the 7th instant, of his reply of the 9th to my said com- 
munication; of my communication to the captain-general, dated the 
8th, and also that of the 9th, to the admiral, in answer to his of the 
same date; the admiral's reply, also a note from the governor-general 
acknowledging receipt of my communication of the 8th, above referred 
to. Likewise, copies of correspondence had with the British consul- 
general relative to William Gildea; Mr. Laborde's statement signed 
besides by Melton and Gildea; letter dated the 2d, received on the 7th 
from Ona Melton; another one of same date from William Gildea, and 
a third letter signed jointly by the three prisoners under date of the 
7th instant. 

I am, &c, 

Ramon O. Williams, 

Consul- General. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 211 

[Inclosure 1 with No. 2987.— Translation.] 

Commander-General of Marine of the Naval Station 

and Squadron of the West Indies, 

Eabana, May 7, 1896. 

Sir: Your official letter and note of the 30th ultimo having been referred in con- 
sultation to the judge-advocate of this naval station, this counsellor reports as 
follows : 

"Excellency: Under date of the 30th of April last the consul-general of the 
United States iu this capital addressed your excellency the two preceding communi- 
cations passed to me for examination and report accompanied with the proceedings 
of the case. In the first of those communications, starting from the supposition that 
the schooner Competitor and the persons captured on board might be Americans, and 
not having exact information respecting the charges and accusations justifying their 
submission to the naval courts of this island, and in accord, as he alleges, with the 
instructions of his Government, he asks your excellency to have the goodness to 
inform him as soon as may be possible of the specific charges brought against the 
said schooner and citizens, with the names of the latter, for the purpose of transmit- 
ting them at once to his Government. 

•• Respecting the first part of this consular petition it is the opinion of the under- 
signed, in view of the good desires always animating and inspiring your excellency 
when treating of matters that may in some manner directly or indirectly affect a 
friendly nation with which the best relations are maintained, that your excellency 
can at once manifest to the consul-general of the United States that, in effect, this 
naval jurisdiction is now occupied in trying the case of the capture of a schooner 
hailing from the port of Key West, whose certificate of inscription and sailing license 
agree as to her name being that of Competitor, or the same one which, refusing to 
show any flag, made armed resistance to a vessel of war of our nation and landed a 
cargo of arms, ammunition, explosives, and other effects belonging to a filibuster 
expedition, under command of the so-called Colonel Monzon; the same that he con- 
veyed from the coast of Florida to Berracos Cove, where the schooner was discharg- 
ing when discovered. It is evident that the accusations and charges springing from 
this fact will be formulated according to regular rules and within the time fixed by 
our code of criminal procedure, it being, therefore, impossible to anticipate the spec- 
ification desired by the consul. But if agreeable to your excellency he could be 
assured that at the proper time he will be informed of all the details he desires to 
know of the case. 

"With respect to the list of the names of the men captured that might be sup- 
posed to be American citizens, there appears no reason up to the present to suppose 
there is any other than Olna Milton of that nationality, who declares he is a native 
of Kansas, 23 years of age, single, newspaper reporter, son of Daniel and Nancy, and 
resident of Key West. On reaching this point I am pleased to call the attention of 
your excellency to the contradiction in which the consul appears to incur when, 
after giving the assurance in the first cited paragraph of his estimable communica- 
tion to the effect that he had no exact information regarding the case, on continuing 
he asks that the men who might perhaps appear to be American citizens be tried in 
strict accord to Article VII of the treaty of the 27th of October, 1795, but of whose 
names and circumstances he then knew nothing. 

" Neither the Article VII invoked by the consul nor the interpretation given it by 
the protocol signed at Madrid the 12th of January, 1877, apply to this case, because 
of the following reasons: 

"First. Because foreigners without distinction of nationality are subject to the 
laws and courts of Spain for crimes committed within Spanish territory, and as such 
foreigners do not enjoy any special right or privilege, being subject to the same 
courts that have cognizance of the affairs of Spaniards in conformity of articles 41 
to 47 of the law relating to foreigners in the ultramarine provinces of the 4th of 
July, 1870. 

"Second. Because whatever may be the interpretation and scope that may be 
given to the treaty and its meaning given by the protocol, this from its beginning 
declares it only embraces resident American citizens, and these only in the case of 
not being arrested with arms in hand, circumstances that do not concur in the present 
case. 

"Article VII of the said law relating to foreigners exacts, among other requisites 
for a foreigner to be considered a resident in the colonies (ultramar), that he must 
be inscribed in the register which to that effect is kept in the superior civil govern- 
ments and in the consulates of his nation. 

"And lastly, because the law of the 7th of April, 1821, mentioned in the protocol 
and invoked by the consul in its relation to the procedure that was fixed, in the 
articles 20 to 31 of the said law and in the fourth and fifth declarations of the protocol 



212 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

are totally derogated under the final enactment of the present law governing crimi- 
nal procedure, by article 750 of the code of military justice and by article 472 of the 
law of military marine procedure. 

"The jurisprudence to which the consul refers iu his communication and alleges 
to be established by the civil and military courts of this island has been limited to 
the competency of the courts and not the rules, forms, requisites, aud solemnities 
of the methods of procedure observed by them. 

"Finally, excellency, yon should not receive nor accept in any form the protest 
addressed to you by the consul of the United States in the name of his Government 
against the application of most summary proceedings (juicio sumarisimo) to those 
who in the case might be American citizens because he considers that form of pro- 
cedure excluded from the protocol and, because in his opinion, it is not the ordinary 
council of war mentioned in Article III of the protocol. 

"This is an error of law in which the consul incurs, the correction of which he will 
find if, in his recognized ability2he will revise the latest organic law relating to the 
procedure of marine courts. 

"In conclusion I am going to refer to the second communication of the consul- 
general of the United States, referring to his desire to communicate with the pris- 
oners. The prohibition of outside intercourse to which they were subjected having 
been removed, your excellency can grant the petition. 

" In the above sense it is understood by the undersigned that your excellency can 
be pleased to reply to the consul-general of the United States should you not esteem 
it better to decide otherwise. Moreover, I have to say, that the official correspond- 
ence that had given rise to this consultation, as also the superior decree your excel- 
lency may have given it, should be passed to the judge of instruction encharged with 
the examination of the case for their attachment to the proceedings. Your excellency 
will decide." 

And having accepted the preceding report I have the honor to so inform you in 
reply to your above-cited esteemed communication. 
I am, etc., 

Jose Navarro y Fernandez. 

the consul-general of the united states. 



[Inclosure 2 with No. 2987.] 

United States Consulate-General, 

Sdbana, May 7, 1896. 
His Excellency the Admiral in Command of this Naval Station and Squadron. 

Excellency : I have the honor to reply to your attentive communication of this 
date, received at this 5 p. m., and to protest at once against the narrow and antag- 
onistic sense with which it considers the treaties and conventions existing between 
the United States and Spain. And being especially instructed by my Government 
in the present case, I must insist to the point of obtainment — that the citizens of 
the United States are to be judged by the courts of this country, in conformity with 
the treaty, notwithstanding the opinion of the judge-advocate of this naval station, 
and to which your excellency has officially adhered with transmission of a copy of it 
to me. 

I can never, as the representative of the United States in this island, lend assent 
to the trial of my countrymen by the exceptional tribunal called by the name of the 
most summary process (juicio sumarisimo), because such form of trial is contrary to 
what has been agreed and ratified in the treaty of 1795 and the protocol of 1877 
between our respective nations, and its application would constitute a most flagrant 
violation. Therefore I trust to be able to convince your excellency of the error in 
which his honor the judge-advocate has incurred on submitting his opinion to your 
excellency, for the point in dispute is of the clearest nature. 

Your excellency, by accepting the opinion of the judge-advocate, affirms that 
article 7 of the treaty of 1795, as likewise the protocol of 1877, for several stated 
reasons, do not apply to the present case, and which I will now proceed to refute, 
interpreting in the following manner, with all fidelity, the intent of my Government, 
which has been duly communicated to me. 

First. It is not absolutely exact with respect to citizens of the United States, the 
affirmation of your excellency that they, in their character of foreigners, must be 
subject for crimes of which they are accused within Spanish territory to all the laws 
and tribunals of Spain, neither that they are not exempt from the tribunals which 
in certain cases have cognizance in the affairs of Spaniards, notwithstanding the 
prescriptions of articles 41 and 47 of the said law relating to foreigners, which your 
excellency mentions. And it is not exact because there are exceptions guaranteed 
by existing treaties to American citizens. And, indeed, the present case is a typical 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 213 

example of this statement, treating as it does of citizens of the United States accused 
of acts against the integrity of Spanish territory; for article 7 of the treaty of 1795 
provides that the detention or arrest for offenses committed hy citizens of the United 
States within the jurisdiction of Spain shall be "made and prosecuted by order and 
authority of law only and according to ordinary proceedings in such cases" (segun 
los tramites ordinarios en tales casos). 

But notwithstanding the clearness of the object, doubts arose as to the preciseness 
of its meaning, and the Governments of the United States and Spain agreed upon 
an interpretation and reduced it to a formal understanding under what is now 
known as the protocol of 1877, the third article of which textually says: 

"Those who may be taken with arms in hand, and who are therefore compre- 
hended in the exception of the first article, shall be tried by ordinary council of war, 
in conformity with the second article of the hereinbefore-mentioned law; but even 
in this case the accused shall enjoy for their defense the guaranties embodied in the 
aforesaid law of 1821." 

And article 4 confirms article 3 in all its parts. And it will therefore be seen how 
the opinion, approved by your excellency, of the judge-advocate is mistaken. For 
Spanish subjects trial by most summary process may be in order under certain cir- 
cumstances, but never for citizens of the United States. Exceptional tribunals may 
try the first, but never the second. Neither the laws nor the judges of exceptional 
councils of war have application within the dominions of Spain to citizens of the 
United States. 

If American citizens are captured in those dominions with arms in hand, they are 
to be judged solely in accordance with article 3 of the protocol, which in that sense 
interprets authentically the treaty of 1795, and as that article refers to the second of 
the law of the 17th of April, 1821, this last article is therefore the one of immediate 
application. That second article of the law of the 21st of April, 1821, says: 

"The accused will be tried militarily in ordinary council of war, as prescribed in 
the law 8, title 17, book 12, of the last recompilation." 

There exists, therefore, an absolute conformity between the treaty of 1795, the 
protocol of 1877, and the law of 1821, for they all agree that the citizens of the 
United States captured with arms in hand in Spanish territory can not ever be tried 
by viost summary process but by ordinary council of war. 

My Government can not, therefore, consent that its citizens be tried uuder any other 
form of procedure than that expressed in the treaty, and to which it strictly adheres. 

The second manifest error contained in the communication of your excellency is 
that which approves the part of the opinion of his honor the judge-advocate by 
which he affirms that the stipulations of the treaty of 1795 and protocol of 1877 
embrace only American citizens residents of Spanish territory. But this error dis- 
appears at once when it is shown that the treaty does not distinguish between Ameri- 
can citizens residing or being in Spanish territory. Article 7 embraces all American 
citizens without difference of any kind. Again, if there was any doubt on this point 
it would be dispelled by the protocol of 1877, for it is not to be supposed that in a 
treaty between two nations the one would put its citizens or subjects in a disadvan- 
tageous position with respect to those of the other; to the contrary both themselves 
on an equal footing. For article 4 of the protocol, on referring to Spanish subjects 
in the United States, reads as follows: 

" The said provisions extend to and comprehend all Spaniards residing or being 
in the United States." 

Therefore, if the protocol comprehends all Spanish subjects residing or being in 
the United States, it must equally comprehend all American citizens residing or 
being in the dominions of Spain ; the Spanish equivalent of the English word being 
is estante, as used in the translation, and signifies in this case the temporary occu- 
pation by a person of a place or spot regardless of permanent residence in the sense 
of domiciliation. These American citizens are in a Spanish dominion, where they 
are to be subjected to judicial trial, and necessarily this must be done in accordance 
with the form of procedure solemnly agreed upon in treaties between Spain and the 
United States. The theory advanced by the judge-advocate, and admitted by your 
excellency, places these American citizens on an inferior plane of justice to Spanish 
subjects in the United States, for if the words used in the protocol by the minister 
of Spain for foreign affairs, Mr. Calderon Collantes, that "the said provisions extend 
to and comprehend all Spaniards residing or being in the United States," are limited 
solely to Spanish subjects, the protocol would then favor one of the contracting 
parties to the prejudice of the other, and this is impossible to suppose since article 
7 of the treaty of 1795, interpreted by the protocol, makes no distinction between 
those American citizens who reside and those being within tue dominion of Spain, 
but comprehend all alike, and where the law makes no distinction the judicial 
authorities can not create them. 

Third. According to your excellency only such foreigners as are inscribed in the 
registers determined by the Spanish law relating to foreigners can be considered as 



214 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

entitled to treaty stipulations. My Government does not admit any such interpre- 
tation, for, above all, it is the only one competent to qualify its citizens and to rec- 
ognize or reject them, as every Government with its own, for the law mentioned by 
your excellency as relating to foreigners is merely a local police regulation of inte- 
rior application and can not derogate a treaty of Spain with another nation. Other- 
wise the nationality of foreigners entering the territories of Spain would depend 
upon its laws relating to foreigners; and to convince your excellency that my Gov- 
ernment does not recognize this assumption, I have the honor to copy, in continuation, 
the following words in which in a like case it instructed me, and to which I must 
adhere : 

"That while it may be expected that citizens of the United States sojourning in a 
foreign State shall comply with reasonable local requirements of registration, omis- 
sion to do so can not vitiate their right to protection a<3 citizens of their own Gov- 
ernment in case of need. That citizenship is a fact of which the citizen's country is 
the authoritative judge under its own laws regarding naturalization and nationality ; 
and that its certification of that fact by passport imparts a verity which the foreign 
Governments are bound prima facie to admit in executing any treaty obligations with 
regard to such citizens." 

Having acquainted your excellency with this view of my Government, it does not 
become me to add a word more on this point, leaving the rest to the consideration 
of your excellency. 

Fourth. The communication of your excellency which I have the honor to answer 
maintains, besides, another point which in the name of my Government I must 
absolutely reject, and which point is expressed in the said communication under 
exaggerated proportions, and is that the law of the 17th of April, 1821, which fixes 
the form of procedure, and that the fourth and fifth articles of the protocol are now 
totally abrogated by the Spanish law regulating criminal procedure, by the code of 
military justice and that of naval procedure, to which your excellency adds that the 
jurisprudence established by the civil and military courts of this island in similar 
cases since 1877 is limited solely to questions of competency between those courts, 
without respect to the rules, requisites, and solemnities of procedure. 

The first thing that contradicts these observations of your excellency is the pro- 
tocol itself, which in its preamble says : 

"The respective parties, mutually desiring to terminate amicably all controversy 
as to the effect of existing treaties in certain matters of judicial procedure, etc." 

It is patent, therefore, that the purpose of the protocol is to interpret and fix the 
form of procedure, as also to determine the jurisdiction of the courts. And it is not 
abrogated, neither is the law of April, 1821, in its application to the treaty relations 
between the United States and Spain, for it is a principal of international law 
which from universal consent has acquired axiomatic force, that treaties subsist so 
long as they are not denounced and revoked by the contracting parties, and if one 
of them violates them the other has the right to exact their strict fulfillment. 

Therefore, the treaty of 1795 interpreted in its doubts by the protocol of 1877, is 
in force and constitutes the international law voluntarily agreed upon by the United 
States and Spain. Both nations recognize and invoke it as the supreme law that 
obligates them unto each other in the regulation of their intercourse and in the set- 
tlement of their differences. For that treaty and its protocol agree upon the only 
form of procedure to be applied in the trial of American citizens either being or 
residing in the dominions of Spain, and the form incorporated in the protocol is the 
same as that above cited, of April, 1821, and provides that such citizens as are 
captured with arms in hand are to be tried by ordinary council of war. 

The treaty still existing, the protocol must naturally be contained in it. There- 
fore, as a logical consequence, your excellency must admit that neither article 7 of 
the treaty, the protocol, nor the law of 1821 are abrogated, but subsist and must 
last so long as the treaty is not abolished by the consent of both contracting parties. 

The local special laws cited by your excellency only refer to Spanish subjects within 
Spanish territory, and can not be applied under the treaty to American citizens. To 
that end the consent of the Government of the United States would be necessary, and, 
without previous denunciation and revocation of the treaty, it continues in force, and 
local laws passed since its date by either Government can only affect the citizens or 
subjects of such Government and not those of the other, since a treaty forms a part of 
the supreme law of every country. These, without the common assent of the contract- 
ing parties, prevail at all times without in any manner being affected by the laws 
made by any one of the contracting parties without the knowledge of the other or 
others. 

The treaty subject of this note is an international law, and those cited by your 
excellency are solely national or local; that is, exclusively obligatory on Spanish 
subjects, but in no way applicable to foreigners when opposed to the treaties existing 
between their Governments and Spain. 

Fifth. Hence the form of trial called most summary process (juicio sumarisimo) 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 215 

which your excellency has decided to apply to these American citizens completely 
violates the treaty in force hetween the United States and Spain, for it provides for 
a form diametrically opposed. 

Sixth. And with respect to the rejection by your excellency of the protest I have 
presented you in the name of my Government against the violation of the treaty, it 
suffices for me to say that notwithstanding its rejection and the adherence of your 
excellency to the contrary opinion of the judge-advocate, still this can not deprive 
it of its legal effects, since I have presented it in due season. 

Seventh. And. finally, as in support of the most summary process, which, as ^our 
excellency informs me, is to he applied to the trial of these American citizens, you 
cite certain laws that are of merely national or local enactment, I have, in conse- 
quence, to again remind your excellency that the casein question is governed by the 
treaty, and, therefore, not by the local law of Spain, which should conform to the 
treaty as a part of the supreme law of Spain. Consequently, the trial of these 
American citizens under the form of most summary process is a violation of article 7 
of the treaty of 1795 hetween the United States and Spain. 

Therefore, and in the name of my Government, I have to ratify my previous protest 
presented to your excellency against the form of trial to which those American citi- 
zens have been subjected, and hereby solemnly renew it, protesting against this form 
of trial as a manifest violation of the said treaty between the United States and 
Spain. 

I avail myself of this occasion to reiterate to your exellency the assurances of my 
most distinguished consideration. 

Ramon O. Williams, 

Consul-General. 



[Inclosure 3 in No. 2987.— Translation.] 

Commandancy-General of Marine of the Naval Station 

and Squadron of the West Indies, 

Halana, May 9, 1896. 

Sir: Your esteemed communication of the 7th instant, in which you answer mine 
of the same date, having been received, I have now the honor to inform you that 
having referred it in consultation to the judge-advocate of this naval station, he 
reports upon it as follows : 

"Excellency: In obedience to your above superior decree, the undersigned has 
studied with the greatest care the esteemed communication addressed you by the 
consul-general of the United States of America in this capital, on the margin of 
which your decree is placed. 

"The latest communication of the consul is a petition against the answer given him 
by your excellency to his remonstrance of the 30th of April last. The consul has 
strengthened his first arguments with the skillful resource of better diction and with- 
out mention of legal provision. I comply, on my part, by duplicating the reasons and 
arguments of my previous report, which, with the greatest respect, are now repro- 
duced. If the present case, as the consul-general of the United States affirms, is 
typical of Article VII of the treaty of 1795, it is not possible, without incurring in a 
grave misconception of fact and of law, to maintain that the American citizen, Ona 
Melton, who is the only one that could in any manner profit by the efforts of the 
consul, has not been prosecuted by order and authority of law only, and according 
to the regular course of proceeding. Such is the estimation given to the proceeding 
had within the unquestionable competency of the marine courts in a case in which no 
precept of law of procedure of this Department has been omitted, and in the sub- 
stantiation of which a period of ten days has been employed, notwithstanding the 
method of most summary process (juicio sumarisimo) has been utilized, which is not 
the exception tribunal capriciously believed, and to which the consular communica- 
tion now the object of my attention alludes. 

"I repeat, there is a remarkable misconception of law in considering that the form 
of most summary process excludes the ordinary council of war and is opposed to the 
employment of the most ample and efficient means of defense by the parties accused, 
the sole object of the most summary process being to gain time (conseguir la mayor 
brevidad) in the different stages of procedure, simplifying some labors or proceed- 
ings of little importance. On a former occasion, when treating of the same case, I 
was enahled to convince your excellency that charges for certain kinds of crimes are 
triable by the ordinary most summary process, whose proceedings are equally 
applicable to natives and foreigners, and, of course, to citizens of the United States, 
as much in those cases coming under the military, naval, or civil jurisdictions. It 
is therefore beyond all doubt Melton and his companions have been tried in the ordi- 
nary way in such cases as come under the coguizance of the most summary process. 
" It is not necessary to insist on the point of residence or stay as determinative of 



216 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

the competency, which neither the accused, the consul, nor directly the Government 
of the United States has discussed, because not being the only cause of it. 

"To the argument presented on that point, it suffices to say that the declarations 
of the protocol of 1877 were in no manner reciprocal, but, to the contrary, each one 
of the signers made his own separately and upon distinct subjects as could not less 
than incur in view of the nature of the matters treated about and the special legis- 
lation of the respective countries. The protocol of the 12th of January, 1877, is not 
a treaty negotiated between two nations, nor even an addition nor complement of 
any preexisting treaty. It is only and exclusively what its preamble says: the 
result of a conference held with the desire to terminate amicably all controversy as 
to the effect of existing treaties in certain matters of judicial procedure, and com- 
municated for its observance by a royal order. Therefore, the citation of interna- 
tional law about the revocation and denunciation of treaties is needless. Conse- 
quently, there being no violation in any shape or manner of the treaty solemnly agreed 
upon between Spain and the United States of the 27th of October of 1795, it is plain 
that within the terms of the most exquisite courtesy it is impossible for your excel- 
lency to accept any of the protests of the consul of that friendly nation in this city." 

And with the approval of the above report I have the honor to transmit you a copy 
of the same, and avail myself of the opportunity to reiterate to you the assurances of 
my most distinguished consideration. 

Jose Navarro Fernandez. 

The Consul-General op the United States. 



[Inclosure 4 in No. 2987.] 

Urgent.] Consulate-General op the United States, 

Hdbana, May 8, 1896. 
His Excellency the Governor and Captain-General of the Island of Cuba. 

Excellency : Yesterday, at 5 p. m., his excellency the admiral of the naval statioi 
has replied to a communication addressed him on the 30th ultimo by this consulate 
general in which, by reason of the capture of the American schooner Competitor, with 
several persons on board, I reminded him of the treaty obligations which absolutely 
prohibit, without exception in any case, the trial of American citizens within Span- 
ish territory by exceptional military tribunals, such as are here called by the name 
of most summary process. 

I explicitly informed his excellency the admiral that on addressing him I did so 
in obedience to the orders of my Government, which exacts the strict fulfillment of 
its treaties with Spain ; and at the end of seven days and at 5 o'clock in the after- 
noon of yesterday I received his answer, denying my affirmation and maintaining 
that the provisions of the treaty of 1795 between the United States and Spain have 
been abrogated by national or local laws subsequently enacted to the date of that 
treaty by the Government of Spain. 

And I am just informed by tne morning newspapers that the trial is to take place 
this same morning at 8 o'clock under the form of procedure known here as the most 
summary process, or fifteen hours after the receipt of the admiral's communication 
in reply to the one which, in the name of my Government, I personally delivered to 
the second in command on the 30th ultimo. 

But, excellency, notwithstanding his excellency the admiral denies it, still the 
fact exists that the only criminal procedure under which citizens of the United 
States can be tried in the dominions of Spain is that designated in the treaty of 
1795 and the protocol of 1877 construing it, under conformity to the procedure estab- 
lished by the law of the 17th of April, 1821. 

All the existing treaty obligations between the United States and Spain having 
application to the case in question prohibit absolutely the trial of American citizens 
within the Spanish dominions under the procedure known as most summary process. 
The treaty from which these obligations emanate has never been revoked, and 
therefore still exists. 

In the same afternoon (of yesterday) I replied to the erroneous communication of 
his excellency the admiral, protesting, in the name of my Government, against the 
trial by the form of most summary process in case it should be carried out, against 
the existing treaty. 

My Government can not consent to any other form of trial for its citizens within 
the Spanish dominions than those so clearly established in the treaty of 1795. They 
may by force be tried by the most summary process; but, then on my part, I must 
decline all the responsibility that may in consequence accrue from such flagrant 
violation of the treaty. My last communication to his excellency the admiral 
refutes and destroys all the errors in which his is inspired. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 217 

Bnt as the persons accused, Ona Melton, Alfred Laborde are, as they inform me, 
American citizens, Laborde a native of New Orleans, Melton of Kansas; andGildea, 
though of British nativity, the mate of an American vessel; and as article 5 of the 
protocol textual ly says "the sentence pronounced shall be referred to the audiencia 
of the judicial district, or to the captain-general, according as the trial may have 
taken place before the ordinary judge or before the council of war," I have there- 
fore, within the instructions of my Government, yet in time, to address myself to 
your excellency, as you have to pass on the sentence of this most summary process, 
to see that justice is done to these American citizens, and to annul the whole pro- 
ceedings hecause having been practiced throughout in manner contrary to the treaty 
between the United States and Spain. 

Your excellency heing the superior representative in this island of the Government 
of His Majesty, and my legal and just demand having heen rejected by the admiral, 
and as the sentence in the case, whatever it may be, has in last instance to be sub- 
mitted to the approval or disapproval of your excellency, I have therefore to beg 
your excellency to order the delivery to you of my communication of the 30th ultimo 
and 7th instant, addressed to his excellency the admiral with the view that your 
excellency may personally examine the reasons and arguments therein stated. 

Should your excellency refuse to accede to my petition addressed to you in the 
preceding paragraph, in the name of my Government, I then most solemnly protest 
in its name before your excellency against the violation of the treaty on the part of 
the Government of Spain, which your excellency so worthily represents in this island, 
giving account of the act to my Government and of my remonstrance and protests 
presented to the naval authorities and to the superior authority of your excellency, 
before which in last instance the sentence must come, from a court incompetent 
under the treaty to take judicial cognizance in the affairs of American citizens in 
this island. 

I have the honor to subscribe myself, with the greatest respect and consideration, 
your excellency's most obedient servant, 

Ramon O. Williams, 

Consul- General. 



[Inclosnre No. 5 in No. 2987.] 

Consulate-General op the United States, 

Eabana, May 9, 1896. 
His Excellency, the Admiral of this Naval Station and Squadron. 

Excellency : In reply to your attentive communication of this date I have to say : 

First. That the officers and crew of an American vessel enjoy, under the laws of 
any country, regardless of their nativity, the protection due to American citizens, 
and Laborde and Gildea, having assured me that they are master and mate, respec- 
tively, of the American schooner Competitor, it is therefore clear that they are embraced 
in the clauses of the treaties between the United States and Spain, and as to Melton, 
he being a native-born American, there can not be any doubt about his status and 
rights. 

Second. The accused have been deprived of their right to name advocate and solic 
itor of their own choice for their defense and to freely communicate with them; 
neither have they been furnished with a copy of the accusation and with a list of the 
witnesses of the prosecution, or allowed to examine them in the presence of them- 
selves and attorney and advocate, nor to summon witnesses in their favor; in a word, 
none of the provisions of article 4 of the protocol have been practiced in their behalf, 
and instead of a professional lawyer of their own choice a naval officer, as I under- 
stand, has been designated for their defense. 

Third. The protocol of 1877 not only confirms the treaty of 1795, but is its most 
authentic interpretation. 

Fourth. The difference between the form of procedure known as most summary 
process and the stipulated ordinary council of war, constitutes an exceptional 
tribunal of the kind expressly excluded by the protocol, the ordinary council of war 
admitted in the protocol being that which is defined in article 2 of the law of the 
17th of April, 1821. 

Fifth. The statement that the signers of the protocol only expressed their private 
opinions therein is not correct; to the contrary, they together, and in common, and 
in the representation of the two countries, agreed upon that plan for the removal of 
all doubts and obscurities that had until then existed as to the methods of judicial 
procednre to be observed in the prosecution of American citizens within the domin- 
ions of Spain. 

Consequently I ratify my previous protests, and, in the name of my Government, 
decline in your excellency and in his excellency the captain-general of this island; 



218 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

all the responsibility that may supervene from the trial of these men by most sum- 
mary process and denial of their right to be tried in the manner expressed by the 
treaty of the 27th of October, 1795, and the protocol construing it of the 12th of 
January, 1877, between the United States and Spain. 

I am, etc., Ramon O. Williams, 

Consul- General. 



[Inclosure No. 6 in No. 2987— Translation.] 

Commandancy-General of Marine of the Naval Station 

and Squadron of the West Indies, 

Habana, 9 May, 1896. 

Dear Sir: Having received your attentive communication of this date insisting 
on the points treated in your two previous ones and ratifying your protests, I have 
the honor to inform you that I passed it in consultation to the judge-advocate of this 
station, and he has reported thereon in the following terms: 

"Information having been given to the Government of His Majesty in everything 
concerning the proceedings had by reason of the capture of the schooner Competitor, 
and being subject to its decision, it is not possible for your excellency to take any 
resolution in this affair, or to accept protests from the consul-general of the United 
States of America in this capital, nor enter in new disquisitions about a question 
already so much debated, and consequently it is my opinion that your excellency 
should be pleased to reydy in this sense to the said consular functionary, leaving his 
action open for the fulfillment of the instructions of his Goverment in the manner 
and way he may esteem most convenient." 

With my approval of the above report, I have the honor to send it to you in reply 
to your said communication, and to reiterate to you the testimony of my most dis- 
tinguished consideration. 

Jose Navarro y Fernandez. 

The Consul- General of the United States. 



[Inclosure 7 in No. 2987.— Translation.] 

General Government of the Island of Cuba, 

Office of the Secretary, 

Habana, May 9, 1896. 
Sir : In reply to your attentive communication of yesterday, protesting in the name 
of the Government of your nation against the court-martial being held by the com- 
mandancy-general of the navy for the trial of the prisoners of the schooner Compet- 
itor, Laborde, Melton, and another, I have the honor to inform you, by order of his 
excellency the Governor-General, that knowledge of the said protest has been given 
to the Government of His Majesty. 
I am, etc., 

El Marques de Palmerola. 
The Consul-General of the United States. 



[Inclosure 8 in No. 2987.] 

British Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 8, 1896. 
My Dear Colleague: I have just heard that one of the Competitor's crew (who 
are to be tried to-day) is a British subject named Gildea. Now, 1 am not at all sure 
that, in acase of this kind, consular interference will be of any avail; but at all events, 
as I understand the Competitor is an American vessel, it appears to me that you alone 
are competent to intervene. If, therefore, you find yourself in a position to give any 
assistance to your own people, might I beg of you to extend the same valuable aid to 
uy poor countryman? 

Believe me, dear Mr. Williams, yours, very sincerely, 

Alex. Gollan. 
Ramon O. Williams,, Esq., 

United States Consul-General. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 219 

[Inclosnre 9 in No. 2987.] 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 8, 1896. 
My Dear Colleague : In reply to your note of this morning, I am pleased to 
inform you that 1 included William Gihlea, a native of Liverpool, England, but the 
mate of the American schooner Competitor, in my petitions to the captain-general 
and admiral, that the American prisoners of the Competitor be tried in accordance 
with article 7 of the treaty between the United States and Spain of 1795, and the 
protocol of January 12, 1877, construing it. 
I am, etc., 

Ramon Williams. 
Alex. Gollan, Esq., 

Her Britannic Majesty' 8 Consul- General, Habana. 



[Inclosnre 10 in No. 2987.] 

British Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 11, 1896. 

My Dear Colleague: I have to thank you for your note of the 8th instant. I 
felt quite sure in writing to you on behalf of my countryman, William Gildea, that 
I could count upon all the assistance in your power. 

It will probably be of interest to you to know what action I myself took in regard 
to the matter. On Friday, the 8th instant, as soon as I heard that the public prose- 
cutor had demanded that the extreme penalty of death should be applied to the pris- 
oners, and was likely to be enforced forth with, I addressed official communications both 
to the Governor-General and admiral requesting that if this was the decision arrived 
at, its execution should be suspended until I had the opportunity of communicating 
the facts by telegraph to Her Britannic Majesty's secretary of state for foreign 
affairs. On the following morning, on the 9th, the admiral sent me a courteous reply 
stating that it was true the "consejo" had agreed to a death sentence, but that in 
deference to my wishes ho had telegraphed to his Government at Madrid. Last 
night I received a further communication from the admiral in which he states: 

"El Gobiemo de S. M. la Reina Regente (q. D. g.) ha dispuesto suspender los 
efectos del consejo de guerra celebrado en el arsenal con motivo del apresamiento 
de la goleta filibustera Competitor y la remision de la causa al consejo supremo." 
Believe me, etc., 

Alex. Gollan. 

Ramon O. Wtlliams, Esq. 



[Inclosnre 11 in No. 2987.] 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 11, 1896. 
My Dear Colleague: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your note of to-day, 
with many thanks for the interesting information therein conveyed. 
Sincerely, yours, 

Ramon O. Williams. 
Alex. Gollan, Esq., 

Her Britannic Majesty's Consul-General, Habana. 



[Inclosure No. 12 in No. 2987.] 

British Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 11, 1896. 
My Dear Colleague : In a telegram which I received last evening from our for- 
eign office regarding Gildea, I am informed that the newspapers had reported the 
man to have become a naturalized American citizen. Will you kindly inform me if 
such is the case ? 
Yours, etc., 

Alex Gollan. 
Ramon O. Williams, Esq., 

United States Consul-General. 



220 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

[Inclosnre 13 in No. 2987.] 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 12, 1896. 
My Dear Colleague: In reply to your note of the 11th instant, just received, I 
have to state that I have no information whatever as to the report that William 
Gildea is a naturalized citizen of the United States. He told me at the prison that 
he was an Englishman and a native of Liverpool. He did not claim American citi- 
zenship, but as one of the crew (he had engaged as mate) of the American schooner 
Competitor it became my consular duty to defend him under paragraph 171 of Con- 
sular Regulations, based on statutes, which states : 

"That the circumstance that the vessel is American is evidence that the crew on 
board are such, and that in every regularly documented vessel the crew will find 
their protection in the flag that covers them." 

And as the Competitor was such a regularly documented vessel, Gildea was entitled 
to the protection of the United States Government, regardless of whatever rights he 
may have as a native-born British subject. 
I am, etc., 

Ramon O. Williams. 
Alex. Gollan, Esq., 

Her Britannic Majesty's Consul-General, Habana. 



[Inclosure 14 with No. 29R7.1 

Arsenal or Navy- Yard, Habana, May 8, 1896. 

My name is Alfredo Laborde ; I am 38 years of age ; I am a native of New Orleans, 
La. ; I was the captain or master of the American schooner Competitor, belonging to 
Mr. Joseph Well, of Key West. This vessel had a license, a wrecking license, and I 
cleared her at the Key West custom-house, with four others besides myself as crew; 
five all told. I took on board twenty-four men as passengers for Lemon City, Fla., 
at $2 each, and sailed from Key West at 2 o'clock in the morning. When in the 
neighborhood of Cape Sable, on the 22d ultimo, the passengers took charge of the 
ship, seized her, and six of them came into my cabin to make me surrender the ship. 
One of them, named Taboada, held a pistol to my breast and I gave up the command. 
They then took the schooner to Cape Sable and here took on board twenty-three 
men with arms and munitions. They then informed me that from Cape Sable to 
Eebecca Light they expected to meet a steamer with more men and arms for Cuba, 
but when we arrived off Rebecca Light I told them that the schooner could not go 
into the Gulf on account of her bad condition, but Taboada, who acted as pilot, 
told me to shut up, and overpowered my objections. 

We reached Cuba, near Berracos, San Cayetano, on Saturday, the 25th April, and 
immediately landed. They forced me to go in the first boat with one of the crew 
and 19 men ; all landed and escaped. I went back on board with the boat and another 
lot lauded. We were sighted by a Spanish tug or steam launch. I ordered the Ameri- 
can flag to be set, but the mate, Mr. William Gildea, who tried to set it, found the 
halliards foul, and as he was shot at twice he threw it down. I held the flag against 
the rigging so that it should be seen Not a shot was fired from the schooner, for we 
had no arms ; the passengers had arms and, we understood, also dynamite. We made 
no efforts to escape with the passengers, because we had been forced, and therefore 
we determined to stay by the ship ; then we were seized or captured by the Spanish 
launch. 

They put me into what is called a Spanish windlass, by tying my writs together 
and then drawing the rope tight by a stick thrust through, which caused me great 
torture and made my wrists swell. 

I know nothing of a proclamation signed Laborde; there was another Laborde 
among the passengers, taller than I and about 32 years old, who spoke French well. 
All our papers, letters, etc., were taken away by our captors and Ave have none to 
show. 

Alfredo Laborde. 

We have heard the foregoing statement read, and do also subscribe and depose to 
the same, Ona Melton declaring further that as a newspaper correspondent he ought 
not to be considered as part of the crew. 

Ona Melton. 
Wm. Gildea. 
Witness : 

Joseph A. Springer, Vice-Consul-General. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me at the arsenal, Habana, at 7.30 a. m. this 8th 
May, 1896. 
Witness my hand and official seal. 

1 Ramon O. Williams, Coneul-General. 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 221 

[Inclosure 15 in No. 2987.] 

Habana Naval Prison, 
May 2, 1896. (Received May 7.) 
Dear Sir: I wish to know if yon are aware that three American citizens have 
been imprisoned here for somo time. If so, please inform me immediately. 

Relying ou your wisdom and integrity, as well as the high esteem with which you 
are held in the United States, I await your advice. 

Most respectfully, Ona Melton. 

Mr. Williams. 



[Inclosure No. 16 in No. 2987.] 

Saturday, May 2, 1896. 
Sir : I belong to the schooner Competitor, captured last Saturday by the man-of-war 
launch Mensagera, and I am accused of landing men and arms in Berracos opening. 
I would request you to see if anything could be done to help me out of the fix we are 
in. I can't say more, but would explain fully if I could see you. 
Yours, etc., 

Wm. Gildea. 

The United States Consul, Habana. 



[Inclosure 17 in No. 2987.] 

Habana, May 7, 1896. 
Dear Sir : We, the undersigned, the captain and the mate of the schooner Com- 
petitor, of Key West, and a correspondent of the Times-Union, of Jacksonville, Fla., 
citizens of the United States, who have been imprisoned here for some time, as you 
are probably aware, are to be tried at some hour to-morrow before the "Conse jo de 
guerra." 

Being informed this evening that we might write to you, we approve of the oppor- 
tunity to respectfully urge that you attend our court-martial in person, or, if it is 
not possible, that you exert your best eflbrfcs in our behalf to the end that we may 
receive justice. 

Respectfully, yours, Captain Alfredo Labobde. 

William Gildea. 
Ona Melton. 

Consul of the United States. 



Mr. Williams to Mr. Rocltliill. 

No. 2988.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 21, 1896. 

Sir: I beg to inform you that having sent Mr. Sanchez Dotz, the 
deputy consul- general, this morning to visit Laborde, Gildea, Melton, 
Barnet, and Leavitt, of the Competitor expedition, and now held in 
custody at Fortress Cabanas, he reports to me that he found all the 
men well; that they stated they were well treated and have no com- 
plaint on this score. William Leavitt, a seaman, says that he is a 
native of Bangor, Me., and Charles Barnet, steward, that he is a native 
of Staffordshire, England. 

From their report it appears that these two were captured while 
asleep on a farm about 8 miles from " La Palma," a village near San 
Cayetano, on the northwest coast of Cuba. 

I am, etc., Eamon O. Williams. 



222 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

Mr. Williams to Mr. RocMill. 

No. 2996.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 23, 1896. 
Sir: With reference to my dispatch, No. 2988, of the 21st instant, 
relative to Charles Barnet and William Leavitt, seamen supposed to 
belong to the crew of the American schooner Competitor and who were 
captured on land, I now beg to inclose the copies of the correspondence 
had with the Governor-General and the admiral of the naval station 
regarding same. 

I am, etc., Eamon O. Williams. 

[Inclosure in No. 2996.] 

Mr. Williams to Governor-General of Cuba. 

Consulate-General op the United States, 

Habana, May 12, 1896. 

Excellency: Being informed by the newspapers of this afternoon that two 
American citizens, named Charles Barnet and William Leavitt, who are supposed to 
belong to the expedition of the American schooner Competitor, have been captured 
on land, and that they are to be tried by the marine jurisdiction, I have to apply 
to your excellency, as the superior representative and delegate of the Government 
of His Majesty the King of Spain, to ask in the name of my Government — 

First. For the strict observance of article 7 of the treaty of 1795, interpreted by 
both Governments in articles 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the protocol of 1877, respecting 
American citizens accused of seditious acts in Spanish territory against the Supreme 
Government of Spain; and — 

Second. That if the sentence should be that of death its execution be suspended 
to give time to communicate by telegraph to his excellency the Minister of State at 
Washington. 

I am, etc., Ramon O. Williams. 

[Inclosure 2 in No. 2996.] 

Mr. Williams to admiral of naval station. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 12, 1896. 

Excellency: Having read in the papers of this afternoon that two American 
citizens named Charles Barnet and William Leavit, who are supposed to belong to 
the expedition of the American schooner Competitor, have been captured on land, 
and that it is intended to try them by the marine jurisdiction, I have to ask your 
excellency, in the name of my Government: 

First. The strict observance of article 7 of the treaty of 1795, as interpreted by 
both Governments in articles 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the protocol of 1877, concerning citi- 
zens of the United States in the Spanish dominions accused of acts of sedition against 
the supreme Government of Spain ; and 

Second. That if the sentence pronounced should be that of death its execution be 
suspended to give me time to communicate by telegraph with his excellency the 
Minister of State at Washington. 

I am, etc., Ramon O. Williams. 



[Inclosure 3 in No. 2996.] 

Mr. Williams to Governor-General of Cuba. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 13, 1896. 
Excellency: Having been informed that the two American citizens recently 
arrested, to whom I referred in the communication I had the honor to address yes- 
terday afternoon to your excellency as belonging to the expedition of the American 
schooner Competitor, are simply sailors belonging to the crew of that vessel, I have 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 223 

to beg your excellency that if this is the fact to please order through the proper 
authorities that the trial of these American citizens be conducted with adherence 
to the terms of the existing treaty between the United States and Spain, according to 
which only those captured with arms in hand are to be tried by ordinary council of 
war, circumstances which can hardly concur in mere sailors of a merchant vessel 
of the United States. 

I have the honor to reiterate to your excellency the testimony of my most distin- 
guished consideration, signifying at the same time that in the same sense I have 
addressed the marine authority. 

Ramon 0. Williams. 



[Inclosure 4 in No. 2996.] 

Mr. Williams to admiral of the West Indies naval station. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, May 13, 1896. 
Excellency: Having been informed that the two American citizens recently 
arrested, to whom I referred in the commnnication I had the honor to address yester- 
day afternoon to your excellency as belonging to the expedition of the American 
schooner Competitor, are simply sailors belonging to the crew of that vessel, I have 
to beg your excellency that if this is the fact to please order through the proper 
authorities that the trial of these American citizens be conducted with adherence 
to the terms of the existing treaty between the United Stmtes and Spain, according to 
which only those captured with arms in hand are to be tried by ordinary council of 
war. circumstances which can hardly concur in mere sailors of a merchant vessel 
of the United States. 

I am, etc., Ramon 0. Williams. 



[Inclosure 5 in No. 2996.] 

El Marques de Palmerola to Mr. Williams. 

General Government of the Island of Cuba, 

Office of the Secretary, > 
Habana, May 13, 1S96. 
Sir : Replying to your attentive communications of yesterday and to-day, referring 
to two American citizens named Charles Barnet and William Leavit, who are sup- 
posed to belong to the expedition of the schooner Competitor and which you under- 
stand have been made prisoners, I have the honor to inform you, by order of the 
Governor-General, that citizens of the United States are judged in accordance w T ith 
the treaties existing between Spain and the United States, and that the sentences of 
death are not executed unless they are approved by the Government of His Majesty. 
I am, etc., 

El Marquez de Palmerola. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

Madrid, June 16, 1896. 
Eesnme duties to-day. Keferi ing to your cablegram, received Paris, 
please indicate what you would consider just decision Competitor case 
as basis for my efforts. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

Department of State, 

Washington, June 30, 1896. 
Inquire and report when decision appellate tribunal Competitor case 
is expected. 



224 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. EocJeMll. 

No. 50.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, July 14, 1896. 

Sir: I herewith transmit copy translation of a communication re- 
ceived from the father of Alfredo Laborde, the captain of the schooner 
Competitor, and signed "The families of the Competitors prisoners," in 
which a request is made of me to intercede with the honorable Secre- 
tary of State that our Government may ask for the pardon of the 
Competitor's prisoners. 

I forward the same for such action as the honorable Secretary of 
State shall deem best to take in the matter. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 



Habana, July 18, 1896. 



[Inclosure in No. 50.] 

The Consul-General of the United States, 

Sab ana: 

The consul-general is requested to intercede with the honorable Secretary of 
State, that he in turn may appeal to the Spanish Government, in order to obtain the 
pardon of the captain and crew of the schooner Competitor. 

Should the consul-genera] decide to do so by cable, there would be an opportunity 
by said pardon to solemnize the birthday of Her Majesty the Queen Regent, which 
is celebrated the 21st of this month. 

It is unquestionable that the Spanish Government must thank the United States 
Government for the attitude it has observed during this civil war, always favorable 
to the former, notwithstanding the popular manifestations against it, which has 
been expressed by all the organs of public opinion in the United States. 

Therefore, if in the strict ground of law there are no terms wherein to request 
what is hereby petitioned of the consul-general, yet on the ground of grace and 
mercy there is room enough without counting also that every occasion is fit to per- 
form a good action. 

The high illustration and intelligence of the consul-general will add to this peti- 
tion such other considerations as may give it more strength and greater probabilities 
of a favorable result. 

The Families of the Competitor's Prisoners. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BockHll. 

No. 79.] United States Consulate- General, 

Habana, August 11, 1896. 
Sir : With reference to an unofficial letter received from Mr. Bock- 
hill, accompanying copy of a letter from a citizen of Key West, Fla., 
respecting the food furnished to the American prisoners of the Compet- 
itor under confinement in the fortresses and jail of this city, I have to 
inform the Department that on the 5th instant I again called the atten- 
tion of the Governor and Captain-General to the subject, and have 
received his reply, of which I accompany herewith a copy translation. 
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 

[Translation.] 

General Government of the Island of Cuba, 

Habana, August 7, 1896. 
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your courteous communica- 
tion of the 5th instant, in which, in compliance with a special instruction of your 
Government, you request that a change be made in the food furnished to the American 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 225 

citizens imprisoned in the fortresses and jail of this capital; or otherwise, to he 
informed if there is any objection to authorize subscriptions in the United States 
for fclio purpose of purchasing, with the proceeds thereof, food for the prisoners 
referred to, in order that they may be supplied with the'same after 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon and 12 noon, the only hours in which the meals are served in those 
establishments. 

With respect to the first part of your said official letter, it becomes the duty of 
this government to make known that the food supplied to the prisoners of all kinds 
in the fortresses and jail of this city, besides being healthy, of superior quality, and 
well seasoned, is provided in abundance and in a varied form, the same for all 
prisoners, without distinction of race or nationality. 

That the good condition of such food is evidently justified in the fact, very notice- 
able, that, notwithstanding there are other prisoners, national as well as foreigners 
of other nations besides that of which yon are a most worthy representative in this 
island, none of them, with the exception of the American citizens, complain of the 
quality or quantity of food. 

The hours during which this is distributed are in conformity with the provisions 
of the regulations which are indispensable to the discipline and interior order of this 
kind of establishment, such hours being fixed after a complete preliminary study 
of the climatological exigencies and customs of the country, it not being possible to 
make any special distinction in favor of a certain class of prisoners; having further 
to add that, besides the daily food, or properly speaking meals, supplied in the pris- 
ons referred to, they are provided daily with coffee, resulting thereby that there is 
not such a long interval as you have been erroneously informed between the time 
during which the prisoners receive food; and that, notwithstanding their condition 
of prisoners, they are supported in the same mauner and hours the generality of 
the inhabitants of this capital, in accordance with the customs of the country. 

These considerations, derived from real and positive facts, will, undoubtedly, 
bring to your upright and impartial attention the conviction that these complaints 
made to you and to the respectable Government which 30U represent are unfounded, 
and will persuade you that it is not prudent nor possible that this Government 
should conform itself to the proceeding referred to in the consultation contained in 
the second part of your respectable communication ; to which is opposed, besides the 
serious considerations of prestige and national dignity, foundations of strict justice, 
connected with the interior order of penal establishments, that in no case, nor in 
any country, can there be allowed privileges or concessions in favor of certain classes, 
which is always irritating and the cause of conflicts which the international har- 
mony and mutual friendly relations between the Government of Spain and that 
of the Republic which you represent with so much prestige, should, advise their 
avoidance. 

God guard you many years. Weyleb. 

The Consul-General of the United States. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bockliill. 

No. 90.] United States Consulate-General, 

Rabana, August 19, 1896. 
Sir: With reference to my dispatch, No. 79, of the 11th instant, in 
which I communicated to the Department the answer of the Governor- 
General to the inquiry if funds subscribed in the United States to 
ameliorate the condition of the American prisoners of the Competitor, in 
confinement at the Cabana fortress, might be forwarded them to provide 
them better food and accommodations, I have now the honor to trans- 
mit a copy translation of another communication from General Weyler, 
to the effect that the governor of the fort has been asked to report on 
the condition of said prisoners; and with respect to their food, which is 
the same as that supplied to all prisoners by the municipal authorities, 
they might obtain it at their own expense and of better quality. 

I therefore infer from said communication that the friends of the 
prisoners will be allowed to transmit them funds, either through this 
office, to be delivered to them direct, or to purchase food to be sent them. 
I am, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee. 
IS 



226 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

[Inclosure in No. 90. — Translation.] 

Captain- General Weyler to Mr. Lee. 

Captaincy-General of the Island of Oltba, 

Habana, August Id, 1896. 
Sir: In answer to your courteous official letter of the 10th ultimo, relative to the 
American prisoners of the Competitor imprisoned at the Cabana fortress, I have the 
honor to state that the general-governor of said fortress has been asked to report 
whether if it is possible to better the condition of said prisoners; and in regard to 
the food supplied to them I have to say, that it is the same given to all prisoners 
supplied by the municipality, but as it is not obligatory on the prisoners to take it, 
they can try to acquire it in better condition. 
God guard you many years. 

Valeriano Weyler. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

Washington, September 5, 1896. 
Delay of Spanish Government in deciding Competitor and Delgado 
cases absolutely unreasonable. Call for prompt action and reasons jus- 
tifying past delay or additional delay, if such is asked for. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

Spain, September 4, 1896. 
Understood here Competitor case already decided annulling judgment 
and ordering new trial before ordinary tribunal. Decision expected 
shortly. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, 

San Sebastian, September 8 y 1896. 
Minister of foreign affairs told me last night confidentially Competitor 
case actually decided as indicated in my last telegram. Will be made 
public soon. Cortes adjourned yesterday. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BoeJchill. 

No. 118.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, September 9, 1896. 
Sir: I transmit herewith copy translation of a note from Captain- 
General Weyler relative to the quarters in the Cabana fortress occupied 
by the Competitor prisoners. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 



CLAIMS OP CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 227 

[Inclosure in No. 118.] 

Captain-General Valeriano Weylcr to Mr. Lee. 

Army op the Island of Cuba, 
Office of the Captain-General, Chief of Staff, 

Habana, September 5, 1896. 
Sir: In continuation of my official note of the 14th August last, I have the honor 
to state that, as I am informed by the general governor of the Cabana fortress, the 
American citizens that belonged to the schooner Competitor occupy the casemates 
(calabozos) Nos. 41 and 42 of said fortress, which are the ones that are best condi- 
tioned among those in the fort. 

God guard you many years. 

Valeriano Weyler. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJchill. 

No. 190.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, October 21, 1896. 

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith copies of two letters I 
have received from Ona Melton, one of the prisoners of the Competitor. 
I have replied by quoting- for his information, and for the information 
of the officers taking the preliminary depositions at La Cabana, articles 
171 and 172 of the regulations prescribed for the use of the consular 
service of the United States. 

It is held there "that the circumstance that the vessel is American 
is evidence that the seamen on board are such, and that in every regu- 
larly documented merchant vessel the crew will find their protection in 
the flag that covers it." 

I am, etc., Fitzhtjgh Lee. 

[Inclosure 1 in No. 190.] 

Mr. Ona Melton to Mr. Lee. 

Fort Cabanas, Calaboza 41, 

Habana, October 18, 1896. 

Dear Sir: Yesterday I was taken to the "cuarto de banderas" (guardroom) to 
make a preliminary deposition, preparatory for a "consejo de guerra ordinario" 
(ordinary court martial) to " ver y taller " (try) the case against the men of the Com- 
petitor, charged with the crimes of "pirateria y rebelion" (piracy and rebellion). 

I had hardly expected that wo were to be tried again under the accusation of piracy 
and rebellion. From an American standpoint the charge of piracy seems absurd, but 
according to the interpretation that was placed on certain parts of the "dictionario 
de Puerto Rico y Cuba" (code of criminal procedure existing in Cuba and Puerto Rico) 
at our recent trial by a "consejo de guerra sumarisimo" (summary court-martial) we 
might come under the classification of pirates. 

In mj declaration they insisted on my stating that I would furnish proof of my 
American citizenship. They seemed to doubt my citizenship because I talked 
Spanish somewhat fluently. They then wanted to know what kind of proof I could 
furnish. I had never thought of my citizenship being brought into question, and I 
was somewhat perplexed. I replied that I did not know, but that I would ask your 
advice. 

I do not know what I ought to do. They said I ought to have a certificate of my 
birth or baptism. Such a request seems to be absurd. It would require months of 
time to get either, if, which is very unlikely, either is still in existence. 

I was born at Vinland, Kans. In fact, I do not know if births are registered in 
Kansas, although I suppose they are. 

I registered and voted in the Arkansas State election two years ago at my home 
in Aurora, Ark. If it is positively necessary, I can write to my father and get a 
deposition made to show my citizenship, but it will require, at the \ery least time 
possible, twenty days, and perhaps thirty, to write and receive returns. 

I was also asked concerning my papers as a correspondent of the Times-Union of 
Jacksonville, Fla. At the other trial my credentials were taken from me and never 
returned, and apparently have been made away with. Gildea read them, and I think 



228 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

Laborde also. If necessary, William L. Delaney, of Key West, Fla., can produce 

evidence concerning my credentials. 

The naval officer who took the deposition seemed very badly informed. He askeA : 
"Do you see Consul-General Lee every day?" "Certainly not," said I. He seemed 
surprised, and said : " How often do you see him?" 

I do not think that the depositions of any of the Competitor men were taken, except 
of Captain Laborde and I. I shall await your advice. 

Yours, most respectfully, Ona Melton. 

[Id closure 2 in No. 190.] 

Mr. Ona Melton to Mr. Lee. 

Fort Cabana, Calabozo (Cell) 41, 

October 20, 1896. 

Dear Sir: I have not yet received an answer to my letter of the 18th instant, but 
write this to inform you of the further proceedings in our case. 

Yesterday I was again taken to the "cuarto de banderas" to make declaration. I 
was again asked what proofs I could produce to show that I was an American citizen. 
I replied that I did not know what would be considered as sufficient proof, but I 
explained, as I explained to you in my letter of the 18th instant, that to constitute 
positive proof it would probably be necessary to have a deposition made before a 
justice of the peace at my home, but that I considered that after the other "consejo 
de guerra" the United States Government and the Spanish Government and courts 
of Madrid had accepted me as an American citizen; that it was now late to raise 
such a question. Then the "juez instructor" asked if you would vouch for my 
citizenship. I replied that I did not know. Then he asked me if Consul Lee knew 
me. Again I hardly knew what to answer, and replied that I did not know that you 
had seen me one time. 

He then asked if you had any documents showing that I was an American citizen. 
At first I replied "No," but on second thought I said that you perhaps had docu- 
ments from Secretary Olney recognizing me as an American citizen. He asked if I 
had any protest to make, and I replied that I protested against being tried without 
being given an opportunity to consult with my consul, and that I did not consider 
that a trial held inside of Fort Cabana would be legal, because no representative of 
the United States consulate was allowed inside of the fort, and that such representa- 
tive ought to be present at the trial. I said that I protested against being tried by 
consejo de guerra ordinario (ordinary court-martial), because according to the 
treaties with the United States an American citizen should be tried in the civil 
courts. My protest was entered, and the judge instructor announced that these 
claims would be investigated. As I passed Captain Laborde's cell he called out, 
"I protested," so I suppose that he entered a protest similar to mine. It was stated 
that the depositions of the other Competitor prisoners would be taken to-day. It is 
said that if we are tried by the civil court we will have to wait at least eighteen 
months for our return on the docket. I shall anxiously await your instructions. 
Yours, respectfully, 

Ona Melton. 

Mr, EocTcMll to Mr. Lee. 

No. 152.] Washington, October 28, 1896. 

Sir: The Department has received your dispatch No. 190 of the 21st 
instant, relative to the case of Ona Melton, one of the crew of the cap- 
tured schooner Competitor. 

As of possible use to the prisoner in establishing his character of 
newspaper correspondent to the satisfaction of the Cuban courts, I 
inclose a certified copy of two affidavits relative to Melton's appoint- 
ment as correspondent of The Florida Times-Union, of Jacksonville. 

I also inclose for your information a copy of a letter on the subject 
from the general manager of the Times- Union. Copies of these papers 
were sent on August 5 last to our minister at Madrid for such use as 
he might be able to make of them in the interest of Melton. 

These are the only documents which the Department has received 
bearing on the matter. It is presumed that Melton has an attorney 
looking after his case, but you will of course assist him as far as you 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 229 

can to establish his claim of American citizenship, which, it seems from 
his note to you, inclosed in your dispatch under acknowledgment, he 
has so far experienced some difficulty in doing to the satisfaction of the 
Spanish authorities. 

I also inclose a copy of a letter from Mrs. Emmie Laborde, wife of 
Alfredo Laborde, master of the schooner Competitor, this being the 
only information which the Department has bearing on his citizenship. 
I am, etc., 

W. W. EOCKHTLL. 



Mr. Springer to Mr. BocJchill. 

No. 211.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, November 12, 1896. 
Sir: I have been informed by the sister of Laborde, one of the Com- 
petitor prisoners, that he was yesterday afternoon, at the time of her 
weekly visit to him, seized with cerebral congestion and removed to 
the old military hospital of this city. 

Charles Leavitt, another of the prisoners, was removed several days 
ago to the same hospital, supposed to be ill with yellow fever, but it 
seems to be a sort of prison fever, induced by confinement and 
insufficient food. 
Una Melton, it is stated, is greatly reduced for the same reasons. 
I am, etc., 

J. A. Springer. 



Mr. Springer to Mr. BocJchill. 

TSo. 212.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, November 14, 1896. 

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your instruc- 
tion iSTo. 152, of 28th ultimo, covering certified copies of affidavits rela- 
tive to the appointment of Una Melton, one of the Competitor prisoners, 
as correspondent of the Florida Times-Union, of Jacksonville. 

These documents, after having been translated and a certificate of 
same affixed, I transmitted on the 11th instant to the Governor and 
Captain-General, with the request that they be forwarded to the court 
having cognizance of Melton's case, as they had been furnished by the 
Department of State, to be of use to him to establish before the court 
his character of a newspaper correspondent. 

1 have received a note from the Secretary of the General Govern- 
ment that the documents were transmitted the same day to the com- 
mandant general of marine, admiral commanding this naval station, 
being the authority having cognizance of the case of the seizure of the 
schooner Competitor. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Joseph A. Springer. 



Mr. Springer to Mr. BocJchill. 

No. 220.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, November 18, 1896. 
Sir: With reference to the case of the Competitor prisoners, I here- 
with transmit a copy of a letter received this morning from Ona 



230 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

Melton respecting the continuation of the trial of himself anclthe other 
prisoners and the information given him by the judge that the case 
would be settled very soon. 

I am, etc., Joseph A. Springer. 



|Tnclo8tire in No. 220.] 
Mr. Ona Melton to Mr. Springer. 

Fort Cabana, Cell 41, November 16, 1896. 

Dear Sir: The trial of the Competitor prisoners by ordinary naval court-martial 
in the "cuarto de bandera" in Fort Cabana was continued yesterday before the Na- 
val Judge Instructor Fernandez Lopez Saul and the full depositions of Dr. Vedia, 
Jorge Ferran, Teodoro Maza, and myself were taken. As far as I know, nothing 
new or different was developed by these depositions from those made in the previous 
court-martial of May. 

The "jnez instructor" told me personally that the case would he settled very soon. 

I take the first opportunity to inform you of this, as I was requested to write to 
the consulate whenever anything new occurred, to keep the consulate informed. 
This was before General Lee left. 

I protested against the method of procedure when the trial began a few weeks 
ago, but really I suppose it makes but little difference about the method of trial, as 
I fancy that the Spaniards have decided beforehand what they intend doing with 
us, and the trial will be a mere form. 

I am, etc., Ona Melton. 



Mr. Roclchill to Mr. Springer. 

No. 165.] Washington, November 19, 1896. 

Sir: I inclose for your information and such action as the exigency 
of the case demands, a copy of a letter from Mrs. Emmie Laborde, 
transmitting a communication from Alfred Laborde, master of the 
Competitor, relative to a new trial of the men of the Competitor. 
I am, etc., 

W. W. Eockhill. 



Mr. Springer to Mr. Roclchill. 

No. 223.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, November 20, 1896. 

Sir : I have the honor to inform the Department that on the 14th 
instant I received from Mrs. Emma Laborde, of Key West, a copy, 
certified by the collector of customs of that port, of the oath and 
appointment of her husband as master of the American schooner 
Competitor. 

I returned this certificate to the collector, with the request that he 
procure the authentication of his signature by the Spanish consul, 
believing that the document would be more valid before the court 
here, and also forestall any objection that might be offered for the want 
of such formality. 

The certificate has been returned duly indorsed, and I have trans- 
mitted it to the Governor- General, with the request that it be forwarded 
to the court having cognizance of Mr. Laborde's case. 

In her letter, Mrs. Laborde states that she had been informed by the 



CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 231 

collector that the Spanish consul had also obtained a certificate regard- 
ing her husband, and the port he had cleared for, Miami. 
I am, etc., 

Joseph A. Speingee. 



Mr. Springer to Mr. RocTcMll. 

No. 226.] United States Consulate-Geneeal, 

Habana, November 23, 1896. 
Sie : Keferring to dispatch No. 223, of the 19th instant, I have to 
inform the Department that the copy of the oath and appointment of 
Alfred Laborde as master of the schooner Competitor, transmitted by 
this office to the General Government, has been forwarded to the com- 
mandant-general of marine, the admiral commanding this naval station, 
which authority has cognizance of the case of the capture of the said 
vessel. 

I am, etc., Joseph A. Speingee. 

P. S. — Mr. Laborde sent me a message, that he had been well treated 
while recently in the hospital (as reported in So. 211, November 12), and 
had been returned to the "Cabana " at his own request. 

J. A. S. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Springer to Mr. RocTcMll. 

Habana, November 26, 1896. 
Am informed that the declarations of Competitor prisoners are being 
taken again by ordinary marine court-martial. Confrontation of the 
master of the Competitor with witnesses day before yesterday lasting 
five hours. Shall I enter a protest even against preliminary proceed- 
ings by the naval authorities or the military authorities H 



Mr. Springer to Mr. RocTcMll. 

No. 234.] United States Consulate-Geneeal, 

Habana, November 26, 1896. 

Sie : I have the honor to confirm the following telegram, transmitted 
this morning. l 

I understand that these preliminary proceedings are intended as 
investigatory, the case being in "sumario" (the nearest equivalent of 
which is taking declarations for a grand-jury indictment). But in the 
case of Sanguily, the United States declined to recognize the validity 
of the military jurisdiction in preliminary or at any stage of the 
proceedings. 

I am, etc., Joseph A. Speingee. 

1 See telegram of November 26, 1896. 



232 CLAIMS OF CITIZENS AGAINST SPAIN. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. RocTcMll. 

No. 246.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, December 3, 1896. 
Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your cablegram, 
reading: 

Washington, D. C, November 28. 
I do not believe th«t protest at this preliminary stage of proceedings against 
" Competitor" prisoners can be of any avail. Obtain conclusions of preliminary 
inquest as soon as they are reached and cable Department. Watch all proceedings 
carefully. 

ROCKHILL. 

With respect to the prisoners, after the usual formalities a clerk from 
this office was allowed to visit them yesterday morning. He reports 
that Laborde returned from the hospital on November 26. All the 
prisoners had again made declarations before the military judge of 
instruction, Laborde having declared four times and Melton three 
times. Nothing is yet known respecting the conclusions of the pre 
liminary examination. Their treatment and food continue the same. 
I am, etc., 

Joseph A. Springer. 



Mr. Springer to Mr. Bockhill. 

No. 251.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, December 5, 1896. 
Sir : I have the honor to inform the Department that 1 received from 
Mr. William L. Delaney, of Key West, an affidavit, made at Aurora, 
Ark., respecting the American citizenship of D. W. Melton, and birth 
of Ona Melton, one of the Competitor prisoners, which I sent to the 
Governor-General to be transmitted to the court having cognizance of 
the case of said Competitor prisoners. 

I am, etc., Joseph A. Springer. 

Mr. Springer to Mr. Roclchill. 

No. 260.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, December 15, 1896. 
Sir : I have the honor to transmit herewith copy of a letter received I 
from Alfred Laborde, one of the Competitor prisoners, respecting certain I 
phases of his examination by the authorities in the prosecution of the ! 
case against him. 



I am, etc., 



Joseph A. Springer. 



[Inclosnre in ~Ho. 2G0.] 
Mr. Laborde to Mr. Springer. 

Fort Cabana, December 11, 1896. 
Sir: I beg to inform yon tbat yesterday afternoon I was ordered by the actual | 
military judge of the prosecution of the Competitor's crew to dress a military's suit, with j 
the purpose of being recognized by some one. Of course I formally protested of 
such act and refused to be disguised that way. He answered immediately that he \ 
was going to compel me by force, and fearing to become the victim of bis brutality, : 
I obeyed. As he did not allow my protest to be considered, I hurry to let you know i 
this, and afford a proof in the way justice is dealt with me. 
I am, sir, your humble servant, 

Alfred Laborde, Master, j 



54th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Document 

2d Session. ] \ So. U6. 



PERSONS CLAIMING AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP CAPTURED 
OS THE COMPETITOR. 



MESSAGE 



FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRA>"SMITTIN~G, 

IN RESPONSE TO RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE OF FEBRUARY 6, 
1897, A REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE IN REGARD 
TO THE PERSONS CLAIMING AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP CAP- 
TURED ON BOARD OF THE COMPETITOR. 



February 23, 1S97. — Eeferred to the Committee on Foreign Belarions and ordered 

to be printed. 



To the Senate: 

I transmit herewith, in response to the resolution of the Senate of 
February 6, 1897, a report from the Secretary of State in regard to 
the persons claiming American citizenship captured on board of the 



Competitor. 

ExEcuTiTE Mansion, 

Washington, February 23, 1897. 



Geotee Cleveland. 



The President : 

Referring to the resolution of the Senate of the Gth instant of the 
tenor and terms following: 

Resolved, That the Senate, being informed by common rnmor and by testimony taken 
by the Committee on Foreign Belarions. tLat a vessel of the United States called the 
Comp-tit'jr has been captured by a Spanish ship of war, and that one or more citizens 
of the United States were captured on board said vessel and have been tried and 
condemned to death by a military tribunal in Cuba, and are now in prison at Habana 
awaiting the execution of the sentences : and the Senate having instructed said com- 
mittee to inquire into and make report respecting the rights of said citizens under 
the treaties existing between the Cni r - States 8] n and under the laws of 

nations, the Pres i - requested, in conformity with section two thousand and one 
of the E^vised Sta: I - I .inform the Senate whether any such capture has been 
made by a Spanish war ship, and whether any citizen of the Unite it fees baa been 

ired on or near such vessel, and "has been unjustly deprived of his liber: 
or under the authority of" the Government of Spain, and whether the Pres: f 
forthwith demanded of Spain the reason of such imprisonment, and, if such impris- 
onment is unlawful, and if such sentence to death violates the laws of natioL- r 

233 



234 PERSONS CAPTURED ON THE COMPETITOR. 

the treaties with Spain, whether the President has demanded the release of snch 

citizens. 

And that the President communicate to the Senate all the facts and proceedings 
relative to such capture, sentence and imprisonment of such citizens as soon as prac- 
ticable, in accordance with the statute in such cases made and provided, as follows: 

"Sec. 2000. All naturalized citizens of the United States while in foreign coun- 
tries are entitled to and shall receive from the Government the same protection of 
persons and property which is accorded to native-born citizens. 

"Sec. 2001. Whenever it is made known to the President that any citizen of the 
United States has been unjustly deprived of his liberty by or under the authority of 
any foreign Government it shall be the duty of the President forthwith to demand of 
that Government the reasons of such imprisonment; and if it appears to be wrong- 
ful and in violation of the rights of American citizenship, the President shall 
forthwith demand the release of such citizen, and if the release so demanded is 
unreasonably delayed or refused the President shall use such means, not amount- 
ing to acts of war, as he may think necessary and proper to obtain or effectuate 
the release; and all the facts and proceedings relative thereto shall, as soon as 
practicable, be communicated by the President to Congress." 

I have the honor to state that practically all the information called 
for by the resolution has been submitted to the President, and was by 
the President transmitted to the Senate January 22, 1897, as will 
appear by reference to Senate Document No. 79, Fifty-fourth Congress, 
second session, and that since that date nothing has taken place of 
consequence either in the way of information received or correspondence 
exchanged. 

Respectfully, 

richard ol.ney. 

Department of State, 

February 20, 1897, 



55th Congress, ■> SENATE. ( Report 

1st Session. 5 \ No - 377 - 



ALFREDO LABORDE AND OTHERS. 



July 14, 1897. — Ordered to be iirintecl. 



Mr. Davis, from the Ooinuiittee on Foreign Relations, submitted the 

following 

REPORT. 

[To accompany S. E. &2.] 

The Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom was referred Senate 
resolution No. 149, presented by Mr. Berry, submit the following report: 

On the 25th day of April, 1896, the schooner Competitor, a regularly 
documented American vessel, was captured by a Spanish gunboat at a 
place alleged to be within the territorial waters of Spain, a few miles 
west of Habana. The following persons, being then on board of her, 
were taken prisoners, viz, Alfredo Laborde, Ona Melton, and William 
Gildea. Laborde claims to be a native of New Orleans, La. He was 
the regularly licensed master of the vessel, and to be such must have 
been a citizen of the United States. William Gildea acted as mate, but 
was born in Liverpool, England. Ona Melton was born at Vinland, in 
the State of Kansas, and he voted at Aurora, in the State of Arkansas, 
in 1894. 

The circumstances preceding and attending the capture of the vessel 
and these men are stated in the affidavit of Laborde, Melton, and Gil- 
dea, made May 8, 189G, to be as follows: 

The vessel belonged to Mr. Joseph Well, of Key West, and had a 
regular license. Laborde cleared her at the Key West custom-house, 
with 4 others besides himself as crew, 5 in all, and took on board 24 
men as passengers for Lemon City, Fla., at $2 each. When in the neigh- 
borhood of Cape Sable, on the 22d of April, \896, these passengers 
forcibly took charge of the ship, and 6 of them came into the cabin to 
make him surrender the vessel. This he did at the muzzle of a pistol 
presented at his breast by one of them named Taboada. They ran the 
schooner to Cape Sable and there took on board 25 men with arms and 
munitions, and informed Laborde that between Cape Sable and Rebecca 
Light they expected to meet a steamer with more men and arms for 
Cuba. 

When they arrived off Rebecca Light, Laborde told them that the 
schooner could not go into the Gulf on account of her bad condition, 
but Taboada, who acted as pilot, told him to shut up, and overpowered 

235 



236 ALFREDO LABORDE AND OTHERS. 

his objections. The vessel reached Cuba, near Berracos, San Caye- 
tano, on the 25th of April, and immediately landed her cargo and 
passengers by boats. The passengers forced Laborde to go in the first 
boat, with one of the crew and 19 men, all of whom landed and escaped. 
He went back on board and another lot landed. At this time they 
were sighted by a Spanish tug or steam launch. He ordered the 
American flag to be set. While William Gildea, the mate, tried to set 
it, he found the halyards foul, and being shot at twice, he threw the flag 
down. Laborde then held the flag against the rigging so it could be 
seen. 

No shot was fired from the schooner, for they had no arms, although 
the passengers who had gone ashore had arms, and, as Laborde also 
understood, dynamite. No effort was made by Laborde or the others 
to escape with the passengers, because they had been forced into their 
existing situation. The captors put Laborde into what is called a 
Spanish windlass by tying his wrists together and then drawing the 
rope tight by a stick thrust through, which caused great torture and 
made his wrists swell. The Competitor and the captives were immedi- 
ately taken to Habana, and the latter were placed in prison, where they 
have ever since remained. 

These affidavits are not contradicted by any statements in the mes- 
sage and accompanying documents transmitted by the President to the 
Senate, nor do these papers present any evidence as to whether the 
Competitor, when seized, was within 1 marine league of the coast of Cuba. 

The case was considered by the Spanish authority to be one of admi- 
ralty jurisdiction, and accordingly, upon the 1st day of May, 1890, a 
summary naval court-martial was constituted for their trial for crimes 
designated, by reference and allusion in the copies of official documents 
which are in the possession of this committee, as piracy and rebellion. 
No copy of the charges has, so far as your committee can ascertain, 
ever been furnished to this Government, though frequently requested. 

Against the jurisdiction and competency of this tribunal and method 
of procedure the American consular representative at Habana, under 
instructions from the Department of State, most earnestly protested on 
the same day, insisting that the case should be tried under the seventh 
article of the treaty with Spain, concluded in the year 1795, and under 
the protocol to said treaty of 1877, and that it should not be tried by a 
summary court-martial, or by any other form of procedure not adjusted 
to the terms of the treaty. He also insisted that Laborde, being the 
master, and Gildea, the mate of the vessel, were, according to para- 
graph 171 of the Consular Regulations, entitled to the protection of the 
United States. 

The admiral to whom this protest was made, and who was the official 
in whom the Spanish jurisdiction in the premises seems to have rested, 
while expressing a willingness to furnish a copy of the charges against 
the men to the American consul as had been demanded, seems never to 
have done so. Their trial took place within fifteen hours after he made 
this offer. The admiral, acting under the advice of the Spanish judge- 
advocate, denied the validity of these objections and protest upon the 
ground that neither Article VII, of the treaty of the 27th of October, 
1795, nor the protocol of 1877 applied to the case, for the reason, as he 
asserted, that foreigners must be tried by the same courts having cog- 
nizance of Spanish subjects, according to the local law relating to 
foreigners, of the 4th of July, 1870, and because that, whatever inter- 
pretation and scope may be given to the treaty and the protocol con- 
struing it, the latter, from the beginning, embraces only resident 
American citizens. 



ALFREDO LABORDE AND OTHERS. 237 

To this last contention as to the protocol the American consul very 
properly replied that Article VII of the treaty of 1795 imposes no con- 
dition of residence either on Spanish subjects in the United States or 
on American subjects resident in the dominions of Spain; for were it 
so the status of American citizens could be taken away from thousands 
of Spaniards in the United States, who visit both countries every year 
as merchants, manufacturers, traders, and tourists. He also interposed 
to this contention of the Spanish admiral the very decisive objection 
that the protocol can not detract from the treaty, and that the protocol 
must be construed to conform to the treaty, and not the treaty to the 
protocol. 

The foregoing is a compendium of demands, protests, objections, and 
refusals which began before the trial of these men, and which were 
continued for some time after such trial had been completed by their 
sentence to death. 

They were tried by a naval court-martial of the most summary char- 
acter, on the 8th day of May, 1896, the trial lasting but a few hours. 
They had no opportunity to summon or examine witnesses, or to be 
defended by counsel of their own selection. They were not tried sepa- 
rately but together, and, it seems, with several other persons. The 
evidence against them cousisted solely of the testimony of Captain 
Butron and the other officers of the Mensajerra, the Spanish gunboat 
which had taken them prisoners. A lieutenant of the Spanish navy 
was assigned to their defense, who asked no questions upon the trial 
and who produced no witnesses. His summing up consisted of a plea 
for mercy to the prisoners, although it is said that he stated they were 
American citizens. There was an interpreter present, but he did not 
make his presence known to the prisoners until they were asked if they 
had anything to say in their own defense. This was after the summing 
up of the prosecution, and of course was after the evidence, both of 
which were given in Spanish and were not translated to the prisoners. 

The naval officer who was appointed to defend them did not commu- 
nicate to them the substance of the evidence or of the summing up of 
the prosecutor. It is very evident that this naval officer could not 
speak English. It appears to the satisfaction of your committee that 
he did not utter a single word to his clients during the trial, and that 
he did not say or do anything in behalf of the prisoners, except to ask 
mercy. 

After this mockery of a trial the presiding officer of the court-martial 
asked Laborde in Spanish what he had to say in his defense. Laborde 
understood that language. He said a few words. So it went on until the 
last man was reached, William Gildea, and the presiding officer spoke 
to him in Spanish. He did not understand, and. then the interpreter 
said, "Do you wish to say anything?" and Gildea then arose and said, 
"All 1 have to say is, I do not understand one word which has been 
said to-day, either for me or against me, and, at any rate, I appeal to 
both the British and American consuls." Melton said, truly, that he 
came aboard the schooner as the correspondent of the Jacksonville 
Times-Union. The trial terminated immediately after these statements 
were made. The prosecutor moved for a sentence of death and it was 
straightway pronounced. 

The Department of State requested, or demanded, that Spain should 
not execute the sentence until a copy of the charges and evidence could 
be furnished to this Government and an opportunity given to investi- 
gate the case. The execution of the sentence seems to have been stayed, 
pending an appeal to the superior tribunals of Spain at Madrid, and 
the result was that after long delay the judgment of the court-martial 



238 ALFREDO LABORDE AND OTHERS. 

was annulled about September 8, 1896, and a new trial ordered before 
the ordinary tribunals. 

It will be observed that this judgment of reversal proceeds upon the 
theory that these captives are justiciable in the Spanish courts for 
crimes alleged to have been committed by them against Spanish laws, 
and it decided nothing more than that the naval court-martial was not 
a proper or competent tribunal for their trial. The appellate court 
merely held that Spain had mistaken her own forum. 

Shortly after this decision, Melton, on the 17th of October, 1896, was 
taken to the guardroom in the prison to make a preliminary deposition, 
preparatory, as he says, for trial by an ordinary court-martial upon the 
charge of piracy and rebellion. The first trial had been by a summary 
naval court-martial. On the 19th of October this procedure was con- 
tinued, and he was asked, as he had been on the previous day, what 
proofs he could produce to show he was an American citizen, notwith- 
standing the fact that it seems to have been conceded throughout the 
first trial that he was an American citizen. 

This mode of examination continued until December 11, 1896, and 
probably thereafter, for upon that day Mr. Laborde wrote to Mr. 
Springer, informing him that he had been ordered on the day before 
by the military judge of the prosecution of the Competitor crew to 
dress himself in a military suit for the purpose of being recognized by 
someone. Against this requirement Laborde protested, and refused 
to disguise himself. The military judge immediately answered that he 
would compel Laborde by force to comply, and, fearing brutality, he 
obeyed. Since that time no proceedings by way of trial have been 
had. From the 30th of April or the 1st of May, 1896, down to the 
present time, a period of more than fourteen months, Melton, Laborde, 
and Gildea have been in close confinement in the Cabanas prison or 
fort at Habana. 

The portions of the treaty, protocol, Consular Regulations, and stat- 
utes having reference to the foregoing statements are as follows: 

Article VII. 

And it is agreed that the subject or citizens of each of the contracting parties, 
their vessels or effects, shall not be liable to any embargo or detention on the part 
of the other, for any military expedition or other public or private purpose what- 
ever ; and in all cases of seizures, detention, or arrest for debts contracted, or offenses 
committed by any citizen or subject of the one party within the jurisdiction of the 
other, the same shall be made and prosecuted by order and authority of law only, 
and according to the regular form of proceedings usual in such cases. The citizens 
and subjects of both parties shall be allowed to employ such advocates, solicitors, 
notaries, agents, and factors, as they may judge proper, in all their affairs and in all 
their trials at law in which they may be concerned, before the tribunals of the other 
party; and such agents shall have'free access to be present at the proceedings iu 
such causes, and at the taking of all examinations and evidence which may be 
exhibited in the said trials. (Treaty with Spain, 1795.) 

1. No citizen of the United States residing in Spain, her adjacent islands, or her 
ultramarine possessions, charged with acts of sedition, treason, or conspiracy against 
the institutions, the public security, the integrity of the territory, or against the 
supreme Government, or any other crime whatsoever, shall be subject to trial by any 
exceptional tribunal, but exclusively by the ordinary jurisdiction, except in the case 
of being captured with arms in hand. 

2. Those who, not coming within this last case, may be arrested or imprisoned; 
shall be deemed to have been so arrested or imprisoned by order of the civil author- 
ity for the effects of the law of April 17, 1821, even though the arrest or imprison- 
ment shall have been effected by armed force. 

3. Those who may be taken with arms in hand, and who are therefore compre- 
hended in the exception of the flrst article, shall be tried by ordinary council of 
war, in conformity with the second article of the hereinbefore-mentioned law; but 



ALFREDO LABORDE AND OTHERS. 239 

even in this case the accused shall enjoy for their defense the guaranties emhodied 
in the aforesaid law of April 17, 1821. 

4. In consequence -whereof, as well in the cases mentioned in the third paragraph 
as in those of the second, the parties accused are allowed to name attorneys and 
advocates, who shall have access to them at suitable times; they shall be furnished 
in duo season with copy of the accusation and a list of witnesses for the prosecution, 
which hitter shall be examined before the presumed criminal, his attorney, and 
advocate, in conformity with the provisions of articles 20 to 31 of the said law; 
they shall have the right to compel the witnesses of whom they desire to avail them- 
selves to appear and give testimony or to do it by means of depositions; they shall 
present such evidence as they may judge proper, and they shall be permitted to 
present and to make their defense, in public trial, orally or in writing, by them- 
selves or by means of their counsel. 

5. The sentence pronounced shall be referred to the audiencia of the judicial dis- 
trict, or to the Captain-General, according as the trial may have taken place before 
the ordinary judge or before the council of war, in conformity also with what is 
prescribed in the above-mentioned law. (Protocol of 1877.) 

171. If the consul is satisfied that an applicant for protection has a right to his 
intervention he should interest himself in his behalf, examining carefully his griev- 
ances. If he rinds that the complaints are well founded he should interpose firmly, 
but with courtesy and moderation in his behalf. If redress can not be obtained from 
the local authorities the consul will apply to the legation of the United States, if 
there be one in the country where he resides, and will in all cases transmit to the 
Department copies of his correspondence, accompanied by his report. (United States 
Consular Regulations.) 

Officers of vessels of the United States shall in all cases be citizens of the United 
States. (Rev. Stat., sec. 4131, p. 795.) 

If the uncontradicted affidavits of Melton, Laborde, and Gildea are 
to be taken as true, and if it is conceded that the vessel was seized and 
that they were arrested, within 1 marine league of the coast of Cuba, it 
is equally well established that they were coerced to that point by supe- 
rior force. Under such circumstances these captives can not be made 
amenable to the laws of Spain. It is a well-settled principle of inter- 
national law that the ships and subjects of a neutral nation, which are 
driven by superior force into prohibited ports or waters of a belligerent, 
draw upon themselves no penal consequences therefor, but must be 
allowed freely to depart therefrom; and the carrying of these three 
men into Cuban waters was as involuntary on their part as if they had 
been driven thither by storm or stress of weather. 

Under the facts and circumstances of this case, it is not competent for 
Spain to try these prisoners by any military tribunal whatever. Two 
of the men, Gildea and Laborde, were officers of an American vessel 
driven under duress into Cuban waters; Melton, a passenger, was an 
American native citizen before he took passage — a friendly neutral, a 
noncombatant, not armed in any way, and his character was not changed 
by the forcible diversion of the vessel from its voyage to Lemon City to 
the Cuban coast. 

They are not amenable to the jurisdiction of any Spanish courts for 
piracy, for the reason that it plainly appears that they had never com- 
mitted or could have intended to do any act of robbery or depredation 
upon the high seas, which acts are the essentials of piracy, and it is 
clear that no such acts were ever intended by either of these prisoners. 

Piracy is an assault upon vessels navigated on the high seas, committed animo 
furandi, whether the robbery or forcible depredation be effected or not, and whether 
or not it be accompanied by murder or personal injury. (1 Phil!., Sec. CCCLVI.) 

Piracy, by the law of nations, is defined with reasonable certainty to be robbery 
upon the seas. (U. S. v. Smith, 5 Wheat., 153.) 

By the law of nations, robbery or forcible depredation upon the sea, animo furandi, 
is piracy. (Story Const., S. 1159.) 

It is not competent for Spain, by declaring that to be piracy which is 
not piracy under the definitions of international law, to extend the pen- 
alties of that crime, or the jurisdiction of its courts as to piracy, to the 



240 ALFREDO LABOEDE AND OTHERS. 

subjects of other nations, or to incorporate in any way its own munici- 
pal definition of the crime of piracy into the law of nations to any 
degree beyond the definition established by international law. 

Nor are these prisoners amenable to any Spanish court for the crime 
of rebellion by reason of any acts committed by them, even if such acts 
are subjected to the most strict and adverse construction. Allegiance 
either as a subject or as an alien amenable by residence or presence to 
the laws of a foreign state is an indispensable element to constitute the 
crime of treason or rebellion. It is the opinion of your committee that 
these men never became amenable to the laws of Spain to that intent. 

Irrespective of any of the foregoing considerations, the conduct of 
Spain, as hereinbefore detailed, constitutes such delay and denial 
of justice and such an actual infliction of injustice upon these men as 
to make it the duty of this Government to demand reparation there- 
for, irrespective of any act which these prisoners may have committed 
up to the date of their capture. Among the acts of reparation which 
ought to be demanded should be the release of these captives. 

The principles which govern the trial of such cases as this were 
correctly expressed by Mr. Evarts, while Secretary of State, as follows: 

It has, from the very foundation of thia Government, been its aim that its citizens 
abroad should be assured of the guarantees of law; that accused persons should be 
apprised of the specific offense with which they might be charged ; that they should 
be confronted with the witnesses against them; that they should have the right to 
be heard in their own defense, either by themselves or such counsel as they might 
choose to employ to represent them ; in short, that they should have a fair and im- 
partial trial, with the presumption of innocence surrounding them as a shield at all 
stages of the proceedings, until their guilt should be established by competent and 
sufficient evidence. (2 Wharton Dig., p. 623.) 

The rights thus defined have been violated in the persons of these 
prisoners. They have been tried and sentenced to death by a summary 
naval court-martial in a proceeding which has been annulled by the 
appellate courts of Spain at Madrid, upon the ground that such a court- 
martial had no jurisdiction whatever over them. Ten months have 
elapsed since this death sentence was annulled, and they have not again 
been brought to trial. In the mean time they have been subjected to 
protracted preliminary examinations preparatory to their trial by 
another court-martial, which differs from the first one only in the fact 
that it is less summary and more formal in its character than the first. 

At the first trial they were not allowed to be defended by counsel 
of their own selection; opportunity or time to produce witnesses was 
denied to them by the celerity with which that trial was instituted 
and conducted. They were only defended by a Spanish naval officer, 
assigned to that duty by the court, who could not or did not speak 
English, who never spoke to them during the trial, who did not intro- 
duce or attempt to introduce any evidence in their behalf, who asked 
for no delay of the trial, and whose only exertion in their defense was 
a plea for mercy, which admitted their guilt. Although an interpreter 
was present, neither the evidence for the prosecution nor the summing 
up of the prosecutor was translated to them. His presence was not 
disclosed until after the prosecution had closed its testimony and argu- 
ment. The only translation made to them was just before the close of 
these sanguinary proceedings, when they were asked if they had any- 
thing to say. Necessarily they had or could have little to say, although 
one of them, Gildea, protested that he had not understood a word of 
the proceedings against him by which his life was to be adjudged for- 
feited. With these protests the trial ended, and the defendants were 
immediately sentenced to death. 



ALFREDO LABORDE AND OTHERS. 241 

It is now fourteen months since they were arrested, during all of 
which time they have been held in the Cabanas fortress as prisoners. 

Melton and Laborde are unquestionably citizens of the United 
States. Gildea is a British subject, but he was a sailor upon an 
American vessel when taken ; was acting as its mate, and it is the 
opinion of your committee that he is entitled to be protected by this 
Government. He was serving under the flag and he is entitled to be 
protected by it. 

In our opinion these acts of delay and denial of justice, and of the 
infliction of injustice, vitiate and make void any right which Spain had 
at the beginning of this transaction to proceed criminally against any 
of these men. This Government should demand that they be set at 
liberty and that the Competitor be restored to her owner, as there is no 
evidence that the owner knew anything about the divergence of the 
vessel from its regular voyage to Lemon City, Fla. 

The committee report the accompanying joint resolution as a sub- 
stitute for the aforesaid Eesolution 149 and recommend its adoption. 

16 



54th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Document 

2d Session. ] \ No. 84. 



LIST OF CITIZENS OF UNITED STATES AERESTED IN CUBA. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 

TRANSMITTING, 

IN RESPONSE TO SENATE RESOLUTION OP DECEMBER 21, 1896, A 
REPORT OP THE SECRETARY OF STATE COVERING A LIST OF 
PERSONS CLAIMING TO BE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES 
"WHO HAVE BEEN ARRESTED ON THE ISLAND OF CUBA SINCE 
FEBRUARY 24, 1895, TO THE PRESENT TIME. 



January 25, 1897. — Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to 

be printed. 



To the Senate of the United States: 

I transmit, herewith, in response to the Senate resolution of Decem- 
ber 21, 1896, addressed to the Secretary of State, a report of that 
officer covering a list of persons claiming to be citizens of the United 
States who have been arrested on the Island of Cuba since February 
24, 1895, to the present time. 

Groves Cleveland. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, January 25, 1897. 



The President: 

The undersigned, Secretary of State, having received a resolution 
passed in the Senate of the United States on December 21, 1896, in 
the following words — 

That the Secretary of State be, and he is hereby, directed to send to the Senate a 
report of all naturalized citizens of the United States of whose arrest and imprison- 
ment, trial, or conviction, or sentence, either to imprisonment at the penal colony 
of Ceutro or elsewhere, he has any information, and that he shall inform the Senate 
in such report of the persons now held in confinement at Ceutro and of the charges, 
briefly stated, on which they were condemned and the nature of the evidence, so far 
as the same appears on the files of the State Department, 

has the honor to lay before the President a list of persons claiming to 
be citizens of the United States who have been arrested in Cuba since 
February 21, 1895, to the present date, to the end that, if in the Presi- 
dent's judgment not incompatible with the public interest, the same 
be transmitted to the Senate in response to the foregoing resolution. 

243 



244 LIST OF CITIZENS OF UNITED STATES ARRESTED IN CUBA. 

Since the breaking out of the insurrection in Cuba, on February 24, 
1895, to the present time, 74 persons, citizens of the United States, or 
claiming to be such, have been arrested by the Spanish authorities of 
the island. 

Passports, certificates of naturalization, registration in the consu- 
lates of this Government on the Island of Cuba, and service on ships 
sailing under the flag of the United States, having been alike accepted 
by our consular officers and the Spanish authorities as prima facie evi- 
dence of citizenship establishing the rights of the claimants to the 
treatment secured to our citizens under our treaties and protocols with 
Spain, it has been deemed advisable to include in the subjoined list all 
persons of the classes referred to who have been arrested. 

Of the 74 persons arrested, 7 have been tried, namely: Nos. 1, 36, 70, 
71, 72, 73, and 74. In the cases of 2 of these (Nos. 1 and 36) appeals 
have been taken, and in the cases of the other 5, the Competitor 
prisoners, a new trial has been ordered. 

Thirty-six persons arrested have been released after the charges 
against them had been investigated and found to be baseless. 

Eighteen have been expelled from the island, after periods of con- 
finement lasting from a few days to nearly a year in the case of Jose" 
Aguirre (No. 2) ; while 17 cases are still pending. The charges against 
14 of the 17 are as follows : 

Nos. 31 and 55, sedition and rebellion. 

No. 38, rebellion. 

Nos. 37, 40, 61 and 62, rebellion with arms in hand. 

No. 43, purchase and concealment of arms and ammunition. 

No. 53, disorderly conduct and insults to Spain. 

Nos. 70, 71, 72, 73, and 74, landing arms from Competitor for insurgents. 

In the remaining three cases (Nos. 35, 47, and 52), the nature of the 
charges having not yet been ascertained, demand has been made both 
at Habana and Madrid that they be at once formulated and communi- 
cated or that prisoners be released. 

Mr. Delgado (No. 54) died in hospital at Habana on the 19th instant. 

Besides the above 74 cases, 9 correspondents of various newspapers 
in the United States have been expelled from Cuba by the Spanish 
authorities, after temporary detention by the military. 

No American citizen has been sentenced or is confined at Ceutro. 

Demands have been made upon the Spanish Government in every 
case where trial seems to be unreasonably delayed that it go forward 
at once or prisoner be released. 

Eespectfully submitted. 

richard olney. 

Department of State, 

Washington, January 22, 1897. 



List of American citizens, native and naturalised, arrested and imprisoned in Cuba since 
February 24, 1895, to date, stating also cause of arrest, charges, place of confinement, 
whether tried, released, deported, or cases pending. 

1. Julio Sanguily, 49 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1878; arrested Feb- 
ruary 24, 1895; charge of rebellion; tried November 28, 1895; found guilty and sen- 
tenced to life imprisonment; case appealed to supreme court, Madrid. Was also 
tried on charge of participation in the kidnapping of the sugar planter Fernandez 
de Castro, in 1894, by the late bandit, Manuel Garcia, and acquitted. Tried for the 
second time December 21, 1896, for rebellion, the case remanded from Spain, and 
again sentenced December 28 to life imprisonment; an appeal taken. Has been 
imprisoned in the Cabana fort. 



LIST OF CITIZENS OF UNITED STATES ARRESTED IN CUBA 245 

2. JOSE Marie Timoteo Aguirre, 52 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1881; 
arrested February 24, 1895; charge of rebellion; confined in Cabana fort; acquitted 
and deported September 6, 1895; went to the United States. 

Francisco Peraza, arrested at Sagua March 2, 1895; charge of participation in 
the robbery of some cattle; released March 4, 1895. 

4. Francisco Carrillo, 45 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1891; arrested at 
Remedios on February 24, 1895, upon a gubernative order for not having inscribed 
himself in the register of foreigners in any province of the island; confined in Cab- 
anas fort ; released and deported to United States May 29, 1895. 

5. Juan Rodriguez Valdes, native of Cuba; naturalized 1876 ; arrested at Puerto 
Principe April 5, 1895 ; released April 6. 

6. Justo Gener, 68 years; native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested at Matanzas 
April 6 ; released April 9, 1895. 

7. Jose Maria Caraballo, 42 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1877; arrested 
at Matanzas April 6; released April 9, 1885. 

8. Manuel Fuentes, 33 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1889; correspondent 
New York World ; arrested at Caimanera April 30, 1895 ; released May 4, 1895, on con- 
dition that he return to United States. 

9. Manuel Vargas, arrested at Remedios July 3, 1895; released and expelled 
July 13, 1895; charged with being an agent of the insurgents, etc. ; naturalized. 

10. Domingo Gonzalez y Alfonso, 42 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1876 ; 
arrested at Quivican July 3, 1895 ; expelled September 3, 1895, for the reason that 
his presence in the island is a source of danger to the Government. 

11. Victoriano Bulit Perez, 33 years; native of Cuba, of American parents: 
arrested at Sagua July 12, 1895; accused of "proposing treasonable acts;" released 
November 8, 1895. 

12. Joseph A. Ansley, 56 years; born in Habana, of American parents ; arrested 
at Sagua August 26,1895; charge, " presence prejudicial to peace of island;" deported 
to United States September 21, 1895. 

13. Aurelio Ansley, 34 years; son of Joseph A. Ansley. Same as above. 

14. Luis Ansley, 30 years ; son of Joseph Ansley. Same as above. 

15. John A. Sowers, 65 years; native of Virginia. Same as above. 

16. Carlos M. Garcia y Ruiz, 28 years; born in the United States; arrested at 
Sagua September 7, 1895 ; accused of attempting to join the insurrectionists ; released 
October 7, 1895. 

17. Jose Martinez Gonzalez, 45 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1873 ; arrested 
at Sagua September 12, 1895; charge of riding on railroad without paying fare; no 
evidence against him; released September 19, 1895. 

18. Mariano Rodriguez Zayas, native of Cuba; arrested Habana September 17; 
released September 19, 1895; naturalized; no charges. 

19. Jose Martinez Mi;sa, 41 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1878; arrested 
at Habana September 17, 1895 ; released September 19, 1895 ; no charges. 

20. Eugene Pelletier, 42 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1877; arrested at 
Cienfuegos December 5, 1895 ; charged with recruiting for the insurrection ; released, 
under surveillance, May 17, 1896. 

21. Joseph J. Trelles, native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested at Matanzas 
December 24, 1895 ; released December 26, 1895 ; no charges. 

22. Manuel M. (or W.) Amieva, 39 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1878; 
arrested at Matanzas December 24, 1895, as a suspect; released December 31, 1895; 
no charges. 

23. Solomon, Chas. S., native of the United States, arrested and released. 

24. Marcos E. Rodriguez, 57 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1875; arrested 
January 17, 1896, on board American steamship Olivette; charge, aiding the rebellion, 
Bedition, etc. ; released April 1, 1896. 

25. Louis Someillan, sr., 58 years; born in Cuba; naturalized Key West 1878; 
arrested January 17, 1896, at Habana; released April 1, 1896; charge, aiding rebellion, 
sedition, etc. 

26. Louis Someillan, jr., 36 years; born in Habana, son of above; arrested Janu- 
ary 17 at Habana; released April 1, 1896; charge, aiding rebellion, sedition, etc. 

27. Ladislao Quintero, born in Key West ; made a prisoner of war February 22, 
1896, at Guatao, where he had been wounded by Spanish troops; released April 11, 
1896. 

28. Walter Grant Dygert, 25 years ; born in the United States ; arrested Feb- 
ruary 23, 1896; imprisoned at Guines; supposed to be insurgent leader El Inglesito; 
finally released and sent to United States April 24, 1896. 

29. Rev. Albert J. Diaz, native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested at Habana April 
16, 1896, charged with forwarding rebel correspondence; confined at police head- 
quarters; expelled April 16, 1896; accused of abetting insurrection. 

30. Alfred Diaz ; brother of above ; arrested, same charge ; both of the Diazes 
were released April 23, 1896, on condition of leaving the country; went to Key West. 



246 LIST OF CITIZENS OF UNITED STATES ARRESTED IN CUBA. 

31. Joseph L. Cepero, native of Cuba; naturalized 1881; arrested prior to Janu- 
ary 20, 1896, on board steamer from Cienfuegos to Batabano; case now pending 
before civil court Santa Clara; confined in Santa Clara prison; charge, sedition, 
rebellion, etc. 

32. Luis Martinez, arrested about March 1, 1896; charged with treasonable cor- 
respondence; released April 13, 1896, on $400 bail; naturalized 1873. 

33. William A. Glean, native of Cuba, of American parents; arrested at Sagua 
April, 1896; charge, rebellion; military jurisdiction inbibited in favor of civil July 
28, 1896 ; released and returned to the United States. 

34. Louis M. Glean, brother of the above; same as above. 

35. Frank J. Larrieu, native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested at Cardenas May 
15, 1896 ; case pending ; charges not made known. 

36. Louis Someillan, 58 years; native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested July 7, 
1896, for second time; charge, aiding rebellion ; turned over to civil court, is con- 
fined in city prison ; trial held January 8, 1897; sentenced January 13 to imprison- 
ment in chains for life ; appeal taken. 

37. Manuel Fernandez Chaqueilo, 19 years; native of Key West; captured 
July 9, 1896; was the companion of Charles Govin; is in Cabana fort; case pending, 
under military jurisdiction; charge, "rebellion with arms in hand." 

38. George W. Aguirre, 25 years; born in the United States; captured by a 
Spauish gunboat July 10, 1896 ; case pending before civil court of Jaruco ; confined 
in Cabana fort; charge of rebellion. 

39. Samuel T. Tolon, 45 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1878; arrested on 
board American steamer Seneca September 3,1896; incomunicado twenty -two days ; 
charged with being a delegate to the Cuban Junta ; released and deported Septem- 
ber 30, 1896 ; went to New York. 

40. Oscar Cespedes, 20 years; native of Key West; captured without arms in 
insurgent hospital near Zapata swamp about September 5, 1896, imprisoned at San 
Severino fort, Matanzas; question of competency between military and civil juris- 
diction decided in favor of military; case pending. 

41. Francisco E. Cazanas, arrested as suspect at Matanzas October 14, 1896; 
released October 16, 1896. 

42. Alfredo Hernandez, 44 years ; native of Matanzas ; naturalized 1876 : arrested 
at his house at Habana September 6, 1896 ; suspicion of being concerned in the insur- 
rection ; expelled September 23, 1896 ; went to Key West. 

43. Antonio Suarez Del Villar, native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested at Cien- 
fuegos September 5, 1896; charged with purchase and concealing of arms and ammu- 
nition ; case sent to civil jurisdiction December 23,1896; in prison at Cienfuegos; 
case pending. 

44. Jose Curbino, native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested at Rincon, September 
18, 1896; surrendered to military authorities without arms; released and is residing 
at Santiago de las Vegas. 

45. Joseph Austin Munoz, native of New Orleans ; arrested at Matanzas Septem- 
ber 18, 1896; released September 19; claimed that arrest was by mistake. 

46. Ramon Rodriguez, native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested September 20, 1896, 
upon requisition from governor of Matanzas; had been iu insurrection; surrendered 
and failed to report regularly; sent to Cardena and released. 

47. Esteben Venero, 22 years; native of Cuba; naturalized 1895; arrested at 
Los Palos (Habana province) about September 22, 1896; charges not stated; Cap- 
tain-General asked for evidence of American citizenship on December 9, which was 
sent him; case pending cognizance of military or civil jurisdiction. 

48. Adolfo Torres, native of Cuba; naturalized; arrested October 4 at Sagua ; 
charges not stated; release ordered November 23, 1896, question of competency not 
established; released November 26, officer remarking " we have no charges against 
you." 

49. Esteben Cespedes (colored), born in Cuba; naturalized Key West, 11891; 
arrested October 13, 1896, charged with naniguismo (voodoo) ; expelled November 7, 
and went to Key West. 

50. Ramon Crucet, 48 years; born in Cuba; naturalized 1873; arrested in Colon 
November 1, 1896; charges, public censure of acts of Spanish Government; released 
December 18, 1896 ; no grounds of complaint. 

51. Louis Lay, 18 years; native of Cuba, of American parents; arrested Novem- 
ber 9, 1896, during a raid upon a social club in Regla; confined in Cabana fort; 
case ordered to be transferred, to civil court at Guanabacoa, December 23 ; charges, 
aiding rebellion. Released January 15, 1897. 

52. Jose Gonzalez, 63 years; native of Bejucal, Cuba; naturalized 1882 ; arrested 
at Las Mangas November 10, 1896, taken to prison at Pinar del Rio ; charges not yet 
made known to consulate-general, Habana. 

53. Theodore L. Vives, native of Cienfuegos ; naturalized 1891 ; arrested Novem- 
ber 19, 1896; charges, first disorderly conduct and then insults to Spain; case pend- 
ing cognizance of military or civil jurisdiction; is confined in jaiL 



LIST OP CITIZENS OF UNITED STATES ARRESTED IN CUBA. 247 

54. Henry J. Delgado, native of the United States; captured about December 
10, 1896, at an insurgent hospital in Pinar del Rio province, after having been ten 
weeks in a hut sick; sent to Havana to Cabana fort; removed to hospital December 
28, 1896, where, our consul-general reports, he received best medical attention; 
died in hospital January 19, 1897. 

55. Gaspah A. Betancourt, 63 years ; native of Cuba; naturalized 1877; arrested 
December 26, 1896, coniined at police headquarters incommunicado, charged with 
sedition. 

56. Feknando Pino Hernandez, 19 years (colored) ; native of Key West; charged 
with naniguismo (voodoo) ; ordered to be expelled December 30, 1896; will be sent 
to Key West. 

57. Amado Pino Hernandez, 21 years ; brother of the above ; same as above. 

58. Jose Antonio Iznaga, native of Cuba; naturalized; expelled in August, 1896; 
no report. 

59. August Bolton, naturalized 1893. 

60. Gustave Richelieu, naturalized 1870; taken in a boat near Santiago de Cuba 
about February 23, 1896; released from prison about March 1, 1896; subsequently 
rearrested and recommitted for leaving Guantanamo without permission; consul 
considers second arrest an excuse for detention; release granted shortly after. 

61. Frank Agramont, and 62, Thos. Julio Sainz, arrested with arms in their 
hands, May, 1895 ; charge, rebellion ; to be tried for armed insurrection against the 
Government; Santiago de Cuba. 

63. John D. Ferrer, no evidence against him; released March 23, 1896; natural- 
ized at New York, 1878. 

64. Pedro Duarte; 65, Jorge Calvar, and 66, Ramon Romagosa, arrested at 
Manzanillo for alleged conspiracy in insurrection ; expelled August 11, 1896. 

67. Donald B. Dodge or F. M. Boyle, arrested at Santiago de Cuba August 2, 
1895; charge rebellion; (consul thinks his mind unbalanced;) released August 31, 
1895, and sailed for the United States; native of New York. 

68. Bert S. Skiller, arrested at La Caleta, in open boat, April 28, 1896; released 
at Baracoa September 3, 1896. 

69. Manuel Comas, arrested October 25, 1895, and released. 

70. Alfred Laborde, native; arrested on steamer Competitor April 25, 1896; 
charge, landing arms for insurgents; confined in Cabana fortress; condemned to 
death May 8; order suspended; new trial opened May 11, 1896. 

71. William Gildea, naturalized; same as above. 

72. Ona Melton, native; same as above. 

73. Charles Barnett, native; supposed to be one of Competitor crew; captured 
on land ; same as above. 

74. William Leavitt, British subject; supposed to be one of Competitor crew ; 
captured on land ; same as above. 



List of newspaper war correspondents who have teen expelled from the island, 

William Mannix, native of United States; expelled as a dangerous alien, etc., 
February 11, 1896. 

Sylvester Scovel, World, native of United States; reported that he had arrived 
from insurgent lines, and it was intended to deport him in January; reported Jan- 
uary 20 that he had returned to insurgent lines. 

Charles Michelson and Lorenzo Betancourt, correspondent and interpreter 
of New York Journal; arrested February 25; confined in Morro Castle; released Feb- 
ruary 27, 1896; charged with having communicated with insurgents by passing 
through Spanish lines at Marianco, etc. 

Elbert Rappleye, Mail and Express; expelled March 26, 1896, for sending news 
to his paper which was false and disparaging to the authorities in the island. 

James Creelman, World, born in Canada; expelled May 5, 1896, for sending to 
paper false reports touching the insurrection. 

P. W. Lawrence, Journal, born in the United States; expelled May 5, 1896, same 
cause as above. 

William G, Gay, World; native of New York. Expelled June 27; went to New 
York. 

Thomas J. Dawley, war correspondent; native of New York. Arrested several 
times between March 24, 1896, and July 3, on suspicion; charges, "taking views of 
forts and conspiring to blowup same with dynamite;" confined thirteen days in 
Mono; released. 



54th. Congress, ) SENATE. ( Document 

2d Session. j \ No. 119. 



GASPAE A. BETANCOUBT. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRANSMITTING, 

IN RESPONSE TO SENATE RESOLUTION OF FEBRUARY 4, 1897, A 
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE, SUBMITTING CORRE- 
SPONDENCE RELATIVE TO THE ARREST AND DETENTION OF 
GASPAR A. BETANCOURT, A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES 
BY THE SPANISH AUTHORITIES IN CUBA. 



February 11, 1897. — Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered 

to be printed. 



To the Senate of the United States: 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of February 4, 1897, 
I transmit a report from the Secretary of State, submitting copies 
of correspondence relative to the arrest and detention of Gaspar A. 
Betancourt, a citizen of the United States, by the Spanish author- 
ities in Cuba. 

Grover Cleveland. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, February 11, 1897. 



The President : 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of the United States of 
February 4, 1897, reading as follows: 

Resolved, That the President is requested, if it is not in his opinion incompatible 
with the public interest, to inform the Senate whether Gaspar Betancourt, a citizen 
of the United States, is held in prison by the Spanish authorities in Cuba, and the 
grounds of the arrest and detentiou ; and that he will also inform the Senate whether 
the release of said Betancourt has been demanded, and when and how often such 
demand has been repeated, and what answer has been made to the same — 

the Secretary of State has the honor to submit copies of correspondence 
relating to the subject, with a view to its transmission to the Senate if 
deemed not incompatible with the public interests. 
Eespectfully submitted. 

Eiohard Olney. 
Depaht^eent of State, 

Washington, February 10, 1897. 

249 



250 GASPAR A. BETANCOURT. 

List ofpapera relative to the arrest and detention of Gaspar A. Betaneourt, a citizen of the 

United States, in Cuba. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, telegram, December 28, 1896. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 276, December 30, 1896. 
Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, telegram, January 2, 1897. 
Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, No. 196, January 2, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, telegram, January 4, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 286, January 6, 1897. 
Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, telegram, January 15, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 306, January 16, 1897. 
Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, telegram, January 19, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, telegram, January 19, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, telegram, January 22, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 329, January 30, 1897. 
Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, telegram, February 2, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, telegram, February 5, 1897. 
Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, telegram, February 9, 1897. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, telegram, February 9, 1897. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. RocJchill. 

[Telegram.] 

HABANA, December 28, 1896. 
Gaspar A. Betaneourt, American citizen, arrested and incomunicado. 
Charges unknown. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. RoclcMll. 

No. 276.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, December 30, 1896. 
Sir : I have the honor to confirm my telegram to the Department of 
the 28th instant. * * * Under the same date I asked the Acting 
Governor-General to give me the reasons for the arrest of Mr. Betan- 
eourt. 

I am, etc., Fitzhtjgh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. RoclcMll to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 

Washington, January 2, 1897. 
See that Betaneourt well treated and case speedily investigated. His 
age entitles him to consideration. Cable result. 

BOOKHILL. 



Mr. RoclcMll to Mr. Lee. 

No. 196.] Department of State, 

WasMngton, January 2, 1897. 
Sir: I append for confirmation a copy of a telegram received from 
you on the 28th ultimo. You are instructed to take, on behalf of Gaspar 
A. Betaneourt, the usual steps in cases of arrest of American citizens. 
I am, etc., 

W. W. Eockhill. 



GASPAR A. BETANCOURT. 251' 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Bockhill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, January 4, 1897. 
Had already taken steps Betancourt case. Hope to arrange release 
and departure from island in few days. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJchill. 

No. 286.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, January 6, 1897. 
Sir : With reference to my dispatch No. 276, of the 30th December, 
last, relative to the arrest of the American citizen, Dr. Gaspar A. 
Betancourt, I have the honor to inclose a copy translation of a com- 
munication received from the Captain and Governor-General of this 
islaud in answer to mine invoking in behalf of Dr. Betancourt the 
rights to which he is entitled under the treaty of 1795 and protocol of 
12th January, 1877, between the United States and Spain, and also 
that the question be solved by expelling from this island the said 
American citizen. It will be observed that the Captain-General states 
that there being sufficient reasons for the proper courts to take cogni- 
zance of Betancourt's case, the proceedings have been referred to the 
ordinary civil courts of justice, considering his condition of an American 
citizen. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



[Inclosure 1 with No. 286.— Translation.] 

General Government of the Island op Cuba. 

In answer to your courteous notes of the 28th aud 31st ultimo and 4th instant, 
relative to the American citizen Mr. Gaspar A. Betancourt, I have the honor to inform 
you, that in view of the reports received by this Government and of gubernative pro- 
ceedings having been initiated against him and others on the charge of sedition, 
and resulting from the said proceedings that there are sufficient reasons for the proper 
courts to take cognizance of the same, said proceedings have been referred, as regards 
Betancourt, to the ordinary courts of justice, considering his condition of a citizen 
of the United States. 

God guard you many years. 

Valeriano Weyleb. 

Habana, January 5, 1S97. 

The Consul- General of the United States. 



Mr. Bockhill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 

Washington, January 15, 1897. 
In the case Gaspar A. Betancourt insist that charges be immediately 
communicated to you or man released. 

Bockhill. 



252 GASPAR A. BETANCOURT. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJchill. 
No. 306.] 

Habana, January 16, 1897. 
I have the honor to confirm the following telegram from you reading: 
[See telegram of January 15]. 

In compliance therewith I addressed at once a communication to the 
Governor and Captain-General, and as soon as an answer is received I 
will transmit it to you. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 

Mr. RocMill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram. J 

Department of State, 

Washington, January 19, 1897. 
Cable reply to Department's cable instruction 15th January. 

Rockhill. 



Mr. Jjee to Mr. Rockhill. 

[Telegram.] 

Asked for information from the Captain-General on 15th to reply to 
dispatch of that date. I have received no response to communication. 
Captain-General left this morning with column troops to proceed 
easterly direction Matanzas. Will demand to-day from the Acting 
Captain-General reply to unanswered communication. If I do not 
promptly receive answer, will notify Department. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJchill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, January 22, 1897. 
Have not succeeded in getting any reply from Captain or Acting 
Captain- General in reference to the charges against the person named 
in your dispatch of 15 tb. Shall I demand his release? 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. RocMill. 
No. 329.] 

Habana, January 30, 1897. 

I have the honor to report that yesterday I visited the jail in this city 
and found there Dr. Gaspar A. Betancourt, who has now been in con- 
finement about thirty-three days. As reported, this gentleman was 
kept in solitary confinement, or ineomunicado, as is called, for two hun- 
dred and eighty-eight hours, when first imprisoned, contrary to the 
treaty between Spain and the United States, which prescribes seventy- 
two hours as the limit. 

I have duly made protests in this case, as in that of others, but no 
attention has been paid to such protests by the authorities here. This 



GASPAR A. BETANCOURT. 253 

is the person referred to in your telegram of the 15th instant, in which 
you direct me to insist that the charges against him be made known or 
release be demanded. In compliance therewith I addressed at once a 
communication to the Governor and Captain-General, to which no 
reply lias yet been received, notwithstanding my having again called 
the attention of the Acting Captain-General to said communication. 

On the 22d instant I telegraphed to the Department, reporting that 
no reply to my communication asking for said charges had been received, 
and asking if I should proceed in demanding release. I have obtained 
no answer from the Department to date. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 



Mr. EocJchill to Mr. Lee. 



[Telegram.] 



Department op State, 

Washington, February 2, 1897. 
Understand Betancourt's case plainly one mistaken identity. Can 
nothing be done? 

EOCKHILL. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. EocJchill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 5, 1897. 
Betancourt and Eva Adan will be released. Previous order for lat- 
ter's release said to have miscarried. 



Mr. Roclchill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department op State, 

Washington, February 9, 1897. 
Referring your cablegram 5th instant, are Betancourt and Eva Adan 
released? 

EOCKHILL. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. EocJchill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 9, 1897. 
Both Betancourt and Eva Adan at liberty. 

Lee. 



54th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Document 

2d Session. \ \ No. 120. 



SEGUNDO N. LOPEZ. 



MESSAGE 



FROM THB 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRANSMITTING, 

IN RESPONSE TO SENATE RESOLUTION OF FEBRUARY 2, 1897, 
REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE RELATIVE TO THE 
KILLING OF SEGUNDO N. LOPEZ, SON OF M. F. LOPEZ, AT SAGUA 
LA GRANDE, IN CUBA 



February 11, 1897. — Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to 

be printed. 



To the Senate of the United States: 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of February 2, 1S97, I 
transmit a report from the Secretary of State relative to the killing of 
Segundo N. Lopez, son of M. F. Lopez, at Sagua la Grande, in Cuba. 

Grover Cleveland. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, February 11, 1897, 



The President : 

Keferring to a resolution of the Senate of the United States of Feb- 
ruary 2, 1897, in the terms following — 

Resolved, That the Secretary of State be requested to send to the Senate any infor- 
mation that he may have in regard to the killing, by Spanish soldiers, of the son of 
M. F. Lopez, an American citizen, at Sagua la Grande, in Cuba, and any report or 
letter from the American consul at that point relating to the subject — 

I have the honor to make the following report, with a view to its trans- 
mission to the Senate if deemed not incompatible with the public 
interests. 

It is claimed that Segundo N. Lopez, son of M. F. Lopez and a native 
of Cuba, was an American citizen — a claim which is supported by the 
fact that he was registered as such by the United States consul at 
Cienfuegos. On the other hand, his name is not to be found in the 
register of American citizens kept by the consul-general at Habana. 
The ex parte evidence in the possession of the Department tends to 
show that Lopez, in the middle of April last, was visiting relatives in a 
district of Cuba which he had been accustomed to frequent as an agent 

255 



256 SEGUNDO N. LOPEZ. 

and interpreter of American buyers of tobacco for export; that he was 
not connected with the insurrection ; that on the 11th of said April he 
was arrested by Spanish troops, being at the time wholly unarmed; 
that on being asked who he was by the officer in command, he at first 
replied that he was a "pacifico," and presently declared that he was an 
American citizen and produced papers which the officers looked at and 
returned to him; and that within a short time thereafter he was killed 
by the troops either by or without orders on the part of the officer in 
command, but so far as known without charges, process, or trial of 
any sort. 

The above brief summary of evidence on file in the Department is 
submitted because the same was communicated in strict confidence and 
on the express understanding that no clew should be given to the 
identity of the witness. 

Upon the receipt of the evidence above referred to the consul-gen- 
eral of the United States at Habana was instructed, August 21, 1896, 
to call upon the Captain-General of Cuba for an investigation of the 
facts respecting the death of Lopez, and for due punishment of all per- 
sons criminally connected therewith. The Captain-General promptly 
acceded to the request for an examination, and stated that the results 
when reached would be reported to this Government. Thus far, how- 
ever, no report on the subject has been received, the last communica- 
tion from the office of the Captain-General being to the effect that the 
inquiry was still pending, so that no definite conclusion could be given. 

Notice of a demand by the father of Lopez for indemnity for the inju- 
ries sustained by him through the death of his son has been duly 
presented to the Spanish Government through our minister at Madrid. 

Respectfully submitted. 

ElOHARD OLNEY. 

Department of State, 

Washington, February 11, 1897, 



54th Congress, ) SENATE. j Document 

2d Session. ] i No. 172. 



AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRANSiMITTING, 

IN RESPONSE TO SENATE RESOLUTION OP FEBRUARY 24, 1897, 
A REPORT PROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE, COVERING COP- 
IES OF THE CORRESPONDENCE AND REPORTS OF THE CONSUL- 
GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES AT HABANA RELATING TO 
ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS NOW IN PRISON IN THE ISLAND OF 
CUBA NOT PREVIOUSLY REPORTED ON. 



March 1, 1897. — Keferred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be 

printed. 



To the Senate: 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of the 24th ultimo, I 
transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of State covering copies 
of the correspondence and reports of the consul-general of the United 
States at Habana relating to all American citizens now in prison in the 
Islaud of Cuba not previously reported on. 

Grover Cleveland. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, March 1, 1897. 



The President: 

The undersigned Secretary of State, having received a resolution 
passed in the Senate of the United States on the 24th ultimo, in the 
folio wing words — 

Resolved, That the Secretary of State be, and he is hereby, requested to transmit 
to the Senate either in open or secret session as he may prefer, all the correspondence 
and reports of the consul-general of the United States at Habana relating to all 
American citizens now in prison in the Islaud of Cuba not previously reported on, 

has the honor to lay before the President a report covering the corre- 
spondence requested in said resolution, to the end that, if in the Pres- 
ident's judgment not incompatible with the public interest, the same 
be transmitted to the Senate in response to the foregoing resolution. 
Respectfully sub in i t ted . 

ElCHARD OLNEY. 

Department of State, 

Washington, March 1, 1897. 
J 7 257 



258 AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA, 



CORRESPONDENCE. 

ARREST OP SYLVESTER SCOVEL. 

1. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 6, 1897. 

2. Telegram, Mr. Olney to Mr. Lee, February 7, 1897. 

3. Telegram, Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, February 7, 1897. 

4. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney, February 7, 1897. 

5. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 8, 1897. 

6. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 8, 1897. 

7. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 9, 1897. 

8. No. 339, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 10, 1897. 

9. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 11, 1897. 

10. No. 349, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 13, 1897. 

11. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 16, 1897. 

12. No. 354, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 16, 1897. 

13. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 19, 1897. 

ARREST OF CHARLES SCOTT. 

1. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 9, 1897. 

2. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 20, 1897. 

3. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Oluey, February 23, 1897. 

4. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney, February 23, 1897. 

5. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney, February 23, 1897. 

ARREST OF F. J, CAZANAS. 

1. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney, February 17, 1897. 

2. Telegram, Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, February 23, 1897. 

3. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 24, 1897. 

4. Telegram, Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, February 25, 1897. 

5. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, February 25, 1897. 

6. Telegram, Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, February 26, 1897. 

7. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill. February 26, 1897. 

8. Telegram, Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockkilh' February 27, 1897. 



Arrest of Sylvester Scovel. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJchill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 6, 1897. 
Sylvester Scovel, World correspondent, arrested yesterday, Tunas, 
Santa Clara province. 

Lee. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 

Washington, February 7, 1897. 
See that all Scovel's rights as American citizen are protected. Eeport 
facts. 



AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA. 259 

Mr. Eoclchill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 

Washington, February 7, 1897. 
In case Scovel use every exertion; no summary action taken. Great 
fear is entertained by friends on account previous expulsion from 
island. Endeavor to have prisoner brought Habana or nearest United 
States consulate. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 7, 1897. 
Scovel will be sent here; think he was returning from an interview 
insurgent commander in chief. He is a splendid scout. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Roclehill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 8, 1897. 
Expect Scovel hereon Friday; do not anticipate serious trouble in 
his case. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Roclehill. 

[Telegram,] 

Habana, February 8, 1897. 
Just seen acting captain- general. Scovel arrested on railroad between 
Sancti Spiritus and Tunas, Santa Clara Province, coming from insurgent 
camp. It is supposed he had criminating papers, which gives case more 
serious aspect. May have to be tried Sancti Spiritus. Am trying to 
get him sent here. Acting captain-general promises to do what he can 
in that direction. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Roclehill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 9, 1897. 
Scovel's case has passed to civil jurisdiction Sancti Spiritus. Act- 
ing captain-general says he no longer has authority over it. Will send 
special messenger there, and will arrange to see that Article IV proto- 
col be strictly complied with. 

Lee. 



260 AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. EocMill. 

No. 339.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, February 10, 1897. 

Sir: As supplementary to iny previous dispatch numbered 338, of 
yesterday's date, confirming, among others, six telegrams relative to the 
arrest of Sylvester Scovel, an American correspondent, near Tunas, I 
now have the honor to inclose copies of my communication to the act- 
ing captain-general asking that Scovel be brought to Habana, in com- 
pliance with the telegraphic instruction of the Department, and his 
answer thereto to the effect that Scovel's case had been referred to the 
civil courts in conformity with the treaty and protocol. Consequently 
I have addressed a note to the judge of Sancti Spiritus having cognizance 
of the case, asking that article 4 of the protocol of 1877 be strictly com- 
plied with. I have made the same request to the acting captain-general. 

To-morrow morning a delegate from me will leave for Sancti Spiritus, 
accompanied by a competent lawyer, to prepare Scovel's defense and 
see that his rights are protected. I will advise the Department as soon 
as any further step is taken in the case. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 

[Inclosure 1 in No. 338.] 

Mr. Lee to Acting Captain-General of Cuba. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, February 8, 1897. 
Excellency: I have the honor to inform you that Mr. Sylvester Scovel, an Ameri- 
can correspondent, has been arrested at Tunas, province of Santa Clara. In com- 
pliance with instructions from my Government, I beg your excellency will please 
instruct the military commandant of said place, or General Luque at Sancti Spiritus, 
or whatever officer it may correspond, to the end that Mr. Scovel be brought to this 
capital at the earliest convenience. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 

[Inclosure 2 in No. 338.] 

Acting Captain-General to Mr. Lee. 

[Translation.] 

Army of the Island op Cuba, 

Captaincy-General, Staff. 
General Luque informs me by cablegram of the 5th instant that an American citi- 
zen, who said his name was Scovel, had been placed at the disposal of the civil juris- 
diction; that the said person was arrested on the railroad track coming from the 
insurgent camp, and is supposed to be the same one referred to by you in your com- 
munication of to-day. Consequently, he is now beyond my authority. 
I am, etc., 

El Marques de Ahumada. 
Habana, 8 February, 1897. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. RocJchill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 11, 1897. 
Scovel in well- ventilated cell, good food, and bed at Sancti Spiritus. 
Treaty rights have been respected. Is in hands civil jurisdiction. I 
have sent messenger to report case. 

Lee. 



AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA. 261 

Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJcMU. 

No. 340.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, February 13, 1897. 
Sir: I Lave the honor to inclose herewith a copy of a letter received 
from Mr. Sylvester Scovel, a correspondent of the New York World, 
recently arrested, and now in prison of Sancti Spiritus. 
I am, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee. 



[Inclosure in No. 349.] 

Mr. Sylvester Scovel to Mr. Lee. 

Carcel of Sancti Spiritus, 

Santa Clara, Cuba, February 8, 1897. 

Dkar General: I have had the misfortune to he without a military pass and was 
apprehended and am now in prison for that reason. I wished to return to Hahana 
and hoarded the train for Tunas at the way station of Zaza. The lieutenant of the 
guardia civil guarding the train had heon instructed hy General Luque to look out 
for an "Ingles" without papers. He saw me, and as I unfortunately came under 
that category he took me into custody and later into jail. I cahled you the same 
night on arriving at Tunas (Fehruary 6) by permission of the very gentlemanly com- 
mandante of the port, hut have received no answer. 

Rafael Madrigal, the United States representative here, has also cahled and has 
done everything possible for my comfort. He should receive his credentials as soon 
as possible. He is a good man. All speak well of him. 

I have been well treated and have now a well-ventilated cell, a bed, and good food. 
"Who could want more — in prison? 

As I don't see just how I have violated Spanish civil law, and as my case has been 
handed over to civil jurisdiction, I can't quite "figure out" what crime I have 
committed. 

I made my declaration to the "judge of the first instance" yesterday afternoon, 
and he courteously immediately put me "in communication," so my rights have so 
far been respected, I fancy. 

I frankly told the judge that I had gone into the field without let nor hindrance 
from any authority in the performance of my legitimate duties as war correspondent, 
and that I had never comported myself in any other manner. 

I feel sure of your help. Remember me most kindly to your family, and believe 
me, 

Yours, respectfully, Sylvester Scovel. 

Kindly acknowledge receipt. 

Scovel. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJcMU. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 16, 1897. 
Scovel's cell Sancti Spiritus large, clean ; is provided with all comforts; 
more comfortable there than would be here ; do not recommend his trans- 
fer now. Charged, first, rebellion for travelling in the country without 
military pass; second, possessing false pass; third, obtaining same; 
fourth, making use of same. Preliminary proceedings closed; date 
trial not fixed; no papers found on him, except notes eulogistic Spanish 
soldier. 

Lee. 



262 AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA, 

Mr. Lee to Mr. BockMll. 

23b. 354.] United States Consulate-General, 

Habana, February 16, 1897. 
Sir : I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a telegram 
received from Tunas de Zaza, the cable station of Sancti Spiritus, 
referring to the case of Scovel. 

I am, etc., Fitzhtjoh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



[Inclosure No. 354.] 

[Telegram. — Translation.] 

Tunas de Zaza. (Received Habana, February 15, 1897.) 
Lee, Consul- General, Habana : 

Scovel treated like a king; his cell in jail ample and clean; consular agent Mad- 
rigal providing him with all comforts; authorities courteous; preliminary proceed- 
ings concluded; charges: First, rebellion, for traveling in the country without a 
military pass; he attempted no act of rebellion; second, possessing a false cedula; 
third, obtaining same; fourth, making use of same. First charge preferred in the 
bando, declaring state of war. Preliminary proceedings. Leave Friday for Santa 
Clara. Scovel will remain here until date of trial is designated. I will arrive at 
Santa Clara to-morrow to activate matter, and thence by train to Habana. Only 
notes eulogizing the Spanish soldier were found on Scovel. I forward reports and 
documents, through Madrigal, by steamer leaving to-night. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BocTchill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 19, 1897. 
Competent lawyer obtained of Santa Clara to defend Scovel, who will 
remain at Sancti Spiritus until trial Santa Clara. Date not yet fixed. 

Lee. 



Arrest of Charles Scott. 
Mr. Lee to Mr. BockMll. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 9, 1897. 
Charles Scott, American citizen, arrested Eegla this naorningj 
charges not yet known. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. BocTchill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 20, 1897. 
Charles Scott, a citizen of the United States, arrested Eegla; no 
charge given. Been without communication, jail, Habana, two hun- 
dred and sixty-four hours. Can not stand another Euiz murder and 
have demanded his release. How many war vessels Key West or 
within reach, and will they be ordered here at once if necessary to 
sustain demand? 

Lee. 



AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA. 263 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 23, 1897. 
Situation simple; experience at Guanabacoa made it my duty to 
demand before too late tliat another American who had been incomuni- 
cado two hundred and sixty-four hours, be released from said incomu- 
nicado, and did so in courteous terms. If you support it and Scott is 
so released the trouble will terminate. If you do not I must depart. 
All others arrested with Scott have been put in communication. Why 
should only American in lot not be? He has been incomunicado now 
three hundred and thirty-eight hours. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 23, 1897. 
Demand complied with. Scott is released from incomunicado. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 23, 1897. 
Scott released from incomunicado to-day on demand, after fourteen 
days' solitary confinement in cell 5 feet by 11; damp; water on bottom 
cell. Xot allowed anything to sleep on or chair ; discharges of the body 
removed once five days. Was charged with having Cuban postage 
stamps in the house. Scott says went always twelve hours without 
water; once two days. He was employee American gas company. 

Lee. 



Arrest of F. J. Cazanas 
Mr. Lee to Mr. Olney. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 17, 1897. 
F. J. Cazanas, a citizen of the United States, arrested Sagua 13th. 
Eeport from consul forwarded by mail to-day. Proceedings a great 
outrage. Similar cases here and elsewhere on island. Eedress can be 
obtained here. 

Lee. 



Mr. xtoclchill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, February 23, 1897. 
Barker dispatch, relative to Cazanas case, just received. Eeport 
upon whole case, facts as to naturalization and citizenship, and what 
you have done or are preparing to do. 

Eockhill. 



264 AMERICAN CITIZENS IN PRISON IN CUBA. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Bockhill. 

[Telegram.] 

HABANA, February 24, 1897. 
Francis Cazanas registered here already; insisted his treaty rights 
should be respected. Captain-General replied two days ago. Facts in 
case are being ascertained. Sagua will report result. 

Lee. 



Mr. Bockhill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 

Washington, February 25, 1897. 
In Cazanas case you must ascertain and report facts as to residence. 

Bockhill. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. BocJcMll. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 25, 1897. 
Cazanas resides Sagua since registration here 1872. See my cable 
yesterday. 

Lee. 



Mr. Bockhill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 

February 26, 1897. 
Cable copy entry in your registration book concerning Francis 
Cazanas. Give number of his passport. 

Bockhill, 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bockhill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 26, 1897. 
Copy entry October, 1872; number 414; Francis J. Oazaiias; age 31; 
single; planter; domiciled Sagua; passport number, 18766; cedula 
issued November 5; number 5441. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bockhill. 

[Telegram.] 

Habana, February 27, 1897. 
Cazanas resided on plantation in Santa Clara Province until May 
last; since then resided in Sagua; owns property in New York. 

Lee. 



55th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Document 

1st Session. ) ( No. 47. 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 



PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

TRANSMITTING, 

IN RESPONSE TO SENATE RESOLUTION OF MARCH 26, 1897, 
A REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE, 'WITH ACCOM- 
PANYING PAPERS, RELATING TO THE ARREST AND IMPRIS- 
ONMENT, AT SANTIAGO DE CUBA, OF THE AMERICAN CITIZENS 
GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 



April 20, 1897. — Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations and ordered to be 

printed. 



To the Senate of the United States: 

In response to the resolution of the Senate of March 26, 1897, I 
transmit a report from the Secretary of State and accompanying papers 
relating to the arrest and imprisonment, at Santiago de Cuba, of the 
American citizens Gustave Richelieu and August Bolten. 

William McKinley. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, April 19, 1897. 



The President : 

The undersigned Secretary of State, in response to the resolution of 
the Senate of March 26, 1897, reading as folknvs: 

That the President be, and is hereby, requested to furnish, if not incompatible with 
the public interests, for the use of the Senate, copies of all papers, correspondence, 
diplomatic or otherwise, on file in the Department of State, relating to and in con- 
nection with the arrest and imprisonment at Santiago de Cuba of the American citi- 
zens and sailors Richelieu aud Bolton, excepting so much of the correspondence as 
is contained in House of Representatives Document No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, 
first session, 

has the honor to submit for transmission to the Senate, if not deemed 
incompatible with the public interests, the correspondence on file in 
this Department relating to the arrest and imprisonment of Gustave 
liichelieu aud August Bolten. 
Eespect fully submitted. 

John Sherman. 
Department of State, 

Washington, April 15, 1897. 

265 



266 GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN, 

List of papers. 

Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney, June 13, 1895. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Gordon, June 18, L895. 

Mr. Eichelieu to Mr. Olney, September 26, 1895. 

Mr. Gordon to Mr Olney, October 2, 1895. 

Mr. Eichelieu to Mr. Olney, October 3, 1895. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Gordon, November 1, 1895. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Eichelieu, November 1, 1895. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney, November 8, 1895. 

Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney, December 27, 1895. 

Mr. Adee to Mr. Morse, February 24, 1896. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney, March 11, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Gordon, March 18, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, No. 483, March 18, 1896* 

Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney, March 19, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olnev, No. 499, April 4, 1896. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney, July 23, 1896. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney, August 18, 1896. 

Mr. Adee to Mr. Morse, August 21, 1896. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Morse, August 31, 1896. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Taylor, No. 556, August 31, 1896. 

Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney, September 12, 1896. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Gordon, September 15, 1896. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Morse, September 29, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, No. 594, November 4, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, No. 603, November 10, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Morse, November 19, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, No. 608, November 21, 1896. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney, December 2, 1896. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Morse, December 3, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Morse, December 4, 1896. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney, December 19, 1896. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, No. 634, January 5, 1897. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, No. 637, January 6, 1897. 

Mr. Coakley to Mr. Olney, January 27, 1897. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney, March 1, 1897. 

Mr. Lodge to Mr. Sherman, March 8, 1897. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Sherman, No. 660, March 9, 1897. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Morse, March 10, 1897. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Lodge, March 10, 1897. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Coakley, March 26, 1897. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Sherman, April 10, 1897. 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Sherman, April 12, 1897. 

Mr. Eockhill to Mr. Morse, April 14, 1897. 



Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney. 

New York, June 13, 1895. 

Deae Sie : I inclose herewith and ask your careful consideration of 
the statement of facts of August Bolten, an American citizen, who was 
unlawfully aud unjustly imprisoned for about two months in Santiago 
de Cuba. Annexed to the statement is Captain Bolten's certificate of 
naturalization. 

I have talked with Bolten very fully, and believe him to be a man of 
excellent character. I am convinced that his statements are not in any 
way exaggerated. 

Yours, very respectfully, David Gordon. 



State of New York, City and County of New York, ss: 

August Bolten, being duly sworn, deposes and says: 

I am a native of Sweden, but emigrated to the United States in the year 1874, 
being then under 18 years of age. I was duly naturalized a citizen of the United 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 267 

States of America on the 6th day of March, 1893, hy the court of common pleas for 
the city and county of New York. My occupation is that of seafaring man, and I 
have followed that occupation for over twenty years. 

In the month of October, 1891, I left New York City as mate on the hrigantine 
Kathleen, commanded by Capt. De La Croix, carrying a general cargo of mer- 
chandise and bound for Port au Prince, Haiti. We reached that port about the 
middle of November, 1891. My services ended there, and I was paid off at the 
British consulate, the brigantiuo having sailed under the British flag. 

I then got work in Port au Prince as a painter, being somewhat familiar with that 
work by occasional experience, and kept at that until I saved sufficient money to 
buy a fishing boat, and on or about January 20, 1895, 1 purchased a 15-foot open boat. 
I intended to sail up to Cape Haitien and fish for green turtles. I engaged Gustave 
Richelieu, likewise a United States citizen, whom I met in Port au Prince, to go with 
me. I obtained from the United States consul at that port a certificate or passport 
for Cape Haitien, and on February 5, 1895, with said Richelieu, I left Port au Prince 
in my boat, heading for Cape Haitien. We sailed along the coast and had been out 
about three days (February 8) when a heavy gale struck us, tore our sail to shreds, 
and so otherwise damaged our boat that we made for the nearest shore, and so man- 
aged to reach the Haitien coast at a small place called Cape de la Bay. We landed, 
and were both immediately arrested by several soldiers and taken before an officer, 
apparently in command, who, after examining our papers, discharged us. We staid 
at that place— Cape de la Bay — about twenty-four hours, repaired our boat as best 
we could, got some provisions, aud set out for St. Nicholas Mole, Haiti. 

We arrived at the Mole on February 12, 1895. Our papers being for Cape Haitien, 
we were allowed to remain there (the Mole) long enough to get some provisions, and 
on the following day (February 13) we started for Cape Haitien. The wind and 
the current, both very strong, were agaiust us, and we were carried out to sea. We 
drifted about three days, the last two days of which we had no food and but little 
drinking water. The Cuban coast was in sight and we made for the nearest port, 
which was Caimanera (known also as Alligator Bay), reaching there February 16. 
The captain of the port inspected our papers, looked over our boat, and, being sat- 
isfied that there was nothing against us, let us go about our business. We told him 
of our plight — that we had no provisions or money. He (the captain of the port) 
sent mo to the United States consul at Guantanamo, about 15 miles inland. The con- 
sul kindly gave me $2, told me there was no work to be found there, and advised us 
to go to Santiago de Cuba as a place where we could more likely get work. And so 
on Wednesday, February 19, we set sail for that place and arrived on February 23. 

We at once reported to the captain of the port. He examined our papers and ques- 
tioned us through an interpreter fully as to our movemeuts and as to who we were. 
We answered fully and freely, aud explained to him the distressing circumstances 
which brought us to Cuba. Some conversation in Spanish, which we do not under- 
stand, followed between the captain and some other officers. They then searched 
our boat and our valises, but we had nothing of a suspicious nature. We asked to be 
directed to the United States consul. The captain sent along with us two guards, 
who, instead of accompanying us to the consul, as we requested and expected, took us 
to a prison. Here, against our urgent protests, we were immediately locked up. We 
had word sent to the United States consul, Dr. Pulaski F. Hyatt, who came to us soon 
thereafter and succeeded in getting our release. He took us to his office and gave us 
some supper. While there an officer called and informed the consul that it would 
be necessary to detain us in prison until news arrived from Port au Prince respecting 
us. After supper a servant of the consul escorted us to the prison, where we were 
again locked up. 

The following day (Sunday, February 24), we had an examination before a mili- 
tary court, and were told that we would have to remain in prison until the last of 
March. The United States consul, Dr. Hyatt, was not present — we could not get 
word to him, and officers refused to notify him of the examination. We were then 
taken back to prison and separately confined. The room in which I was put was about 
50 feet long by r 30 feet broad ; it was very filthy ; it contained about twenty prisoners 
besides myself; they were men of the lowest description — thieves, ruffians, and 
murderers. For three weeks I was thus confined, never being let out for one minute 
during that time, although the other men in my room were allowed to exercise in 
the jail yard twice a week, and I afterwards learned that prisoners in the other cells 
were allowed to exercise daily in the jail yard. As a result of my close confinement, 
I was, at the end of the third week thereof, taken sick with fever and rheumatism. 
I was transferred to the prison hospital, which was some distance from the jail, and 
kept under medical care for about ten days. I was then declared to be well, and 
ordered back to prison. My arms were tied with a rope around my back, and although 
very weak and barely able to stand I was marched back to prison under a hot, blaz- 
ing sun, escorted by two soldiers with drawn swords. I begged the jail officers to 
put me in some less unwholesome quarters than I was before, and they yielded to the 



268 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

extent of putting rue in the same occupied by Richelieu, and I was allowed there- 
after to exercise in the jail yard every day. While in the hospital I was informed 
that my case was transferred from the military court to a civil court. I was kept in 
jail till April 25, when I was released on condition that I should not leave town, 
and should report weekly to the judge. On May 3 I was told I could go where I 
liked. 

While we were confined in prison, Dr. Hyatt came to see us about once a week, 
bringing us newspapers to read and food, and telling us that he was engaged all the 
time in efforts to secure our liberty. 

On May 3, Dr. Hyatt got me a job on the echooner Eliza Pendleton, bound for New 
York, where I arrived on May 29. 

I solemnly swear and declare that at no time during the times above mentioned, nor 
at any other time or place whatsoever, was I engaged in what is called a filibustering 
expedition against the Spanish Government, or any other government, nor did I ever 
in my life in any way take part in any revolutionary movement in Cuba or elsewhere. 

I am still suffering physically from the effects of my prison experience in Santiago 
de Cuba. I have not recovered from the attack of rheumatism, which I fear has 
become chronic. 

I learn today that Gustave Richelieu has just arrived at New York from the South. 

My certificate of naturalization is hereto annexed. 

Wherefore deponent respectfully petitions for such relief as the facts above set 
forth shall be found to warrant. 

August Bolten. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 13th day of June, 1895. 

[seal.] Harry E. Stam, 

Notary Public, Kings County. 

(Certificate filed in New York County.) 

David Gordon, 
Attorney for Bolten, 60 Wall Street, NewYork. 



United States of America, 

State of New YorTc, City and County of New York, ss: 

Be it remembered that on the 6th day of March, in the year of our Lord 1893, 
August Bolten appeared in «the court of common pleas for the city and county of 
New York (a court of record having common-law jurisdiction, a clerk, and seal) "and 
applied to the said court to be admitted to become a citizen of the United States of 
America, pursuant to the provisions of the several acts of the Congress of the United 
States of America for that purpose made and provided; and the said applicant 
having produced to the said court such evidence, having made such declaration and 
renunciation, and having taken such oaths as are by the said acts required, 

Thereupon it was ordered by the court that the said applicant be admitted, and 
he was accordingly admitted to be a citizen of the United States of America. 

In testimony whereof the seal of the said court is hereunto affixed this 6th day of 
March, 1893, and in the one hundred and seventeenth year of the Independence of 
the United States. 

Per curiam. 

[•seal.] Albert Wagstaff, Clerk. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Gordon. 

Department of State, 
Washington, June 18, 1895. 

Sir: I have received your letter of the 13th instant inclosing the 
affidavit of Mr. August Bolten, a naturalized American citizen, who 
claims damages of Spain for unlawful imprisonment, lasting two months, 
imposed on him by the authorities at Santiago de Cuba. 

I inclose a copy of the Department's circular relating to claims 
against foreign governments. If you will have the statement prepared 
in accordance therewith, it will be presented to the Spanish Government. 

The Department, however, thinks it well to remind you that the rev- 
olutionary disturbances existing in the part of Cuba where Mr. Bolten 
and his companion landed and the not unreasonable suspicion of the 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 269 

authorities that they were in some way connected with a filibustering 
expedition or the landing of parties to aid the insurgents may render 
it difficult to procure pecuniary indemnity for him from the Spanish 
Government. 
His naturalization paper is herewith returned. 

I am, etc., Kichard Olney. 



[Translation.] 

Mr. Richelieu to Mr. Olney. 

Washington, D. C, September 26, 1895. 

Mr. Minister: On the Sth February, 1895, I and my companion, 
August BoJten, left the port of Port au Prince, Haiti, for Cape Hai- 
tien. with our papers iu order and a bill of lading, signed by the 
American legation. We stopped at St. Marc, where I had a duplicate 
passport vised, about the 10th or 11th February. From there we 
sailed for our destination. We were caught in bad weather, and 
anchored iu a small harbor, the name of which I have forgotten. The 
next evening we sailed again, and in bad weather arrived at St. P. 
Moole. where we had a very cold reception from the commandant of 
the port, who ordered us to take in our provisions and be off. We 
remained there, however, twenty-four hours. His telegraphic opera- 
tors supplied us with provisions, and, thanks to them, we sailed on the 
13th or 14th. The bad weather threw us on the Cuban coast, where 
we landed at Alligator Bay. It was a Saturday; the date may be 
found from an almanac. My friend. August Bolten, went up to Guan- 
tanamo with one of the officers of the port to see the American consul, 
who told him that we had better go to Santiago de Cuba, where we 
could find work or sell the boat. Bolten came back on Monday morn- 
ing. We sailed immediately and reached that port on the 23d Febru- 
ary. The navy commandant immediately had us arrested. 

We appealed to the kindness of the American consul, who immedi- 
ately protested on seeing that our papers were in order and on our 
telling him what had happened to us at Alligator Bay, which informa- 
tion was given to the Spanish authorities. This did n:>: satisfy them, 
and the energetic protests of the consul had no effect. We conse- 
quently underwent, from the 23d February to the 25th April, sixty-two 
days of unhealthy imprisonment. Thanks to the kindness of Mr. 
George Eugene Brisson, the reporter of the Xew York Herald, we were 
protected from hunger. My friend Bolten having succeeded in getting 
on board the American vessel Templeton (or Pemberton . I was left 
alone. Mr. Brisson. on the morning of the 11th May. told me to go on 
board the steamer Niagara; that he would come at 2 p. m. to deliver 
his mail and pay my passage. The Spanish authorities must have 
prevented him from coming, and as I sailed without a ticket, the mean 
captain landed me at Nassau, where Mr. Thomas J. McLain, the United 
States consul at Nassau, was so kind as to have me transported to Key 
West, paying $16.50 for my passage. From there I succeeded in 
reaching 2Sew York by the help of a friend. I am now. owing to the 
rheumatism Tvhich I contracted in the prison at Santiago, unable to 
resume my regular profession. 

I have made America my adopted country. I have been a citizen 
since 1871. I have passed my life in this country. I have served the 
United States under the first present Administration. What I want 



270 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

is only a fair indemnity for sixty-two days of imprisonment and for the 
confiscation of our vessel. 

Hoping, Mr. Minister, that you will kindly grant my petition, I am, 
your respectful servant, 

Gustave Richelieu, 
(Care of John M. Perreard, 506 Fourteenth street W.) 



Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney. 

60 Wall Street, New York, 

October £, 1895. 
Dear Sir: I have been in due receipt of your favor of June 18, 1895, 
acknowledging receipt of petition of Captain Bolten, making claim 
against the Spanish Government for unlawful imprisonment in Cuba. 
With your letter you inclosed a circular of instructions for filing claims 
against foreign governments, and you kindly advised the preparation of 
the petition or memorial in accordance with such instructions. This I 
have endeavored to do, and I inclose herewith the memorial so drawn, 
duly signed and verified. 

Yours, very respectfully, David Gordon. 



Memorial of August Bolten making claim against Government of Spain. 
[David Gordon, attorney for August Bolten, 60 Wall street, New York City.] 

New York, September 30, 1895. 
His Excellency the Honorable Grover Cleveland, 

President of the United States of America : 

I, August Bolten, memorializing and petitioning your excellency, respectfully show : 

I am a native of Sweden, but emigrated to the United States in the year 1874, being 
then under 18 years of age. I am now over 37 years of age. I was duly naturalized 
a citizen of the United States of America on the 6th day of March, 1893, by the court 
of common pleas for the city and county of New York. My occupation is that of 
seafaring man, and I have followed that occupation for over twenty years. I have 
remained such citizen of the United States ever since, having never transferred my 
allegiance to any other sovereignty. I now reside at No. 2 Ninth street in the city of 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

In the month of October, 1894, I left New York City as mate on the brigantine 
Kathleen, commanded by Captain De La Croix, carrying a general cargo of merchan- 
dise, and bound for Port au Prince, Haiti. We reached that port about the middle 
of November, 1894. My services ended there, and I was paid off at the British con- 
sulate, the brigantine having sailed under the British flag. 

I then got work in Port au Prince as a painter (being somewhat familiar with 
that work by occasional experience) and kept at that until I saved sufficient money 
to buy a fishing boat; and on or about January 20, 1895, I purchased a 15-foot open 
boat. I intended to sail up to Cape Haitien and fish for green turtles. I engaged 
Gustave Richelieu, likewise a United States citizen, whom I met at Port au Prince, to 
go with me. I obtained from the United States consul at that port a certificate or 
passport for Cape Haitien, and on February 5, 1895, with said Richelieu, I left Port 
au Prince in my boat, heading for Cape Haitien. We sailed along the coast and 
had been out about three days (February 8), when a heavy gale struck us, tore our 
sails to shreds, and so otherwise damaged our boat that we made for the nearest 
shore and so managed to reach the Haitian coast at a small place called Cape de la 
Bay. We landed, and were both immediately arrested by several soldiers and taken 
before an officer apparently in command, who, after examining our papers, dis- 
charged us. We stayed at that place (Cape de la Bay) about twenty-four hours, 
repaired our boat as best we could, got some provisions, and set out for St. Nicholas 
Mole, Haiti. 

We arrived at the Mole on February 12, 1895. Our papers being for Cape Haitien, 
we were allowed to remain there (the Mole) long enough to get some provisions, and 
on the following day (February 13) we started for Cape Haitien. The wind and 
the current, both very strong, were against us and we were carried out to sea. We 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 271 

drifted about three days, the last two days of which we had no food and but little 
drinking water. The Cuban coast was in sight, and we made for the nearest port, 
which was Caimanera (known also as Alligator Bay), reaching there February 16. 
The captain of the port inspected our papers, looked over our boat, and being satis- 
fied that there was nothing against us, let us go about our business. We told him 
of our plight, that we had. no provisions or money. He (captain of the port) sent 
me to the United States consulate at Guantanamo — about 15 miles inland. The 
consul kindly gave me $2, told me there was no work to be found there, and advised 
us to go to Santiago de Cuba as a place where we could more likely get work. And 
so, on Wednesday, February 19, we set sail for that place and arrived on February 23. 

We at once reported to the captain of the port. He examined our papers and 
questioned us through an interpreter fully as to our movements, and as to who we 
were. We answered fully and freely, and explained to him the distressing circum- 
stances which brought us to Cuba. Some conversation in Spanish, which we do not 
understand, followed between the captain and some other officers. They then 
searched our boat and our valises, but we had nothing of a suspicious nature. We 
asked to be directed to the United States consul. The captain sent along with us two 
guards, who, instead of accompanying us to the consul, as we requested and expected, 
took us to prison, where, against our urgent protests, we were immediately locked 
up. We had word sent to the United States consul, Dr. Pulaski F. Hyatt, who came 
to us soon thereafter and succeeded in getting our release. He took us to his office 
and gave us some supper. While there an officer called and informed the consul that 
it would be necessary to detain us in prison until the news arrived from Port au 
Prince respecting us. After supper a servant of the consul escorted us to prison, 
where we were again locked up. The following day (Sunday), February 24, we had 
an examination before a military court and were told, we would have to remain in 
prison until the last of March. 

The United States consul, Dr. Hyatt, was not present. We could not get word to 
him and officers refused to notify him of the examination. We were then taken back 
to prison and separately confined. The room in which I was put was about 50 feet 
long by 30 feet broad. It was very filthy. It contained about 20 prisoners beside 
myself. They were men of the lowest description — thieves, ruffians, and murderers. 
For three weeks I was thus confined, never being let out for one minute during that 
time, although the other men in my room were allowed to exercise in the jail yard 
twice a week, and I afterwards learned that prisoners in the other cells were allowed 
to exercise daily in the jail yard. As a result of my close confinement I was, at the 
end of the third week thereof, taken sick with fever and rheumatism. I was trans- 
ferred to the prison hospital, which was some distance from the jail, and kept under 
medical care for about ten days. I was then declared to be well and ordered back to 
prison. My arms were tied with a rope around my back and, although very weak 
and barely able to staud, I was marched back to prison under a hot, blazing sun, 
escorted by two soldiers with drawn swords. I begged the jail officers to put me in 
some less unwholesome quarters than I was in, and they yielded to the extent of putting 
me in the same cell occupied by Richelieu, and I was allowed thereafter to exercise 
in the jail yard every day. While in the hospital I was informed that my case was 
transferred from the military court to a civil court. I was kept in jail till April 25, 
when I was released on condition that I should not leave town and should report 
weekly to the judge. On May 3 I was told I could go where I liked. 

While we were confined in prison Dr. Hyatt came to see us about once a week, 
bringing us newspapers to read and food, and telling us that he was engaged all the 
time in efforts to secure our liberty. 

On May 3 Dr. Hyatt got me a job on the schooner Eliza Pendleton, bound for New 
York, where I arrived on May 29. 

I solemnly swear and declare that at no time during the times above mentioned, nor 
at any other time or place whatsoever, was I engaged iu what is called a filibustering 
expedition against the Spanish Government, or any other Government, nor did I 
ever in my life in any way take part in any revolutionary movement in Cuba or 
elsewhere. 

I am still suffering physically from the effects of my prison experience in Santiago 
de Cuba. I have not recovered from the attack of rheumatism, which I fear has 
become chronic. 

I learned lately that Gustave Richelieu arrived at New York from the South. 

Your petitioner verily believes he has been damaged to the extent of $10,000. 

Wherefore your petitioner prays for the interposition of the United States Govern- 
ment with the Government of Spain to the end that his claim aforesaid shall be pre- 
sented to and paid by said Government of Spain. And your petitioner will ever pray. 

August Bolten, Petitioner. 
David Gordon, 
Attorney for August Bolten, 60 Wall street, New YorTc. 

New York, September SO, 1895. 



272 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

State of New York, City and County of New York, ss: 

August Bolten, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he is the petitioner or 
memorialist named in the foregoing memorial or petition subscribed by him; that 
he has read the same and knows the contents thereof, and that the same is true of 
his own knowledge, except as to the matters therein stated to be alleged on informa- 
tion and belief, and that as to those matters he believes it to be true. 

August Bolten. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 30th day of September, 1895, 

[seal.] Harry E. Stam, 

Notary Public, Kings County. 

(Certificate filed in New York County.) 

I, Harry E. Stam, the notary public who administered the oath to August Bolten, 
the petitioner above named, hereby certify and declare that I have no interest what- 
ever in or to the claim above set forth, or any part thereof, and that I am not, nor 
have I ever been, the agent or attorney of said Bolten ; and I believe said Bolten to 
be an honest and conscientious man and his statements to be worthy of faith and 
credit. 

New York September 30, 1895. 

[seal.] Harry E. Stam, 

Notary Public, Kings County. 

(Certificate filed in New York County.) 



Mr. Richelieu to Mr. Olney. 

[Translation.] 

Washington, October 3, 1805. 

Mr. Minister of State : The declaration which I wrote last week 
is the truth. I have not related the inward sufferings to which we 
were subjected in the prison; they are indescribable. We suffered 
from hunger; we slept on the floor without aD.y covering; we were 
eaten by lice, fleas, and scorpions. I was compelled to exchange for 
bread the articles which I possessed. My friend August Bolten 
caught the yellow fever, and the doctor sent him to the hospital. As 
we were separated, I only learned it through an employee of the prison. 
The consul himself had not been informed of it. It was I that told him 
on Sunday when he came to see us, which lie did at every mail that he 
received from Washington. We gave him a great deal of trouble, and 
he had warm discussions with the Spanish authorities, which you can 
read for yourself in his reports to the Department. I did not have the 
yellow fever myself, but I had fevers caught by the cold in sleeping on 
the floor. When I awoke I had chills, accompanied by fever, and from 
those sufferings I have caught rheumatism for the rest of my life. A.t 
times I am whole days without being able to move a limb. I am in 
that condition whenever the temperature changes. 

I wish, therefore, to have a prompt and satisfactory settlemeut. If 
I had been a person of importance they would perhaps have been less 
cruel to me. When we left the prison they told us to go wherever we 
chose. That is why the consul advised us not to complain; that the 
Department at Washington would have our case settled. 

When we arrived at Alligator Bay the consul at Guantanamo 
advised us to go to Santiago de Cuba, where it would be much easier 
for us to find a position. If we had done anything we would have been 
arrested. They would not have thought that we were going to Cuba, 
as we could have gone to Jamaica, which is only six hours' passage. 

On the 25th April, when we left the prison, I went to see the judge 
of instruction to get my citizenship papers, which he had. He told me 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 273 

that as the record was in his court I would have to wait ten or fifteen 
days. The consul advised me not to wait; that he would give me a 
passport which would protect me and which would be entirely sufficient 
on presenting it at the ministry. 

I desire the Minister of State to obtain a pecuniary indemnity for me 
from the Spanish authorities for all the outrages which I have under- 
gone. 

With this expectation I am, with the deepest respect, 
Your very humble servant, 

Gustave Richelieu, 

(Care of Mr. Alexander Porter Morse, 1505 Pennsylvania avenue.) 

Sworn to and subscribed before me, a notary public, on this 3d day 
of October, A. D. 1895. 
[seal.] Jesse W. Rawlings, 

Notary Public, District of Columbia. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Gordon. 

Department of State, 

Washington, November 1, 1895. 
Sir : I have received your letter of the 2d ultimo, transmitting the 
memorial of August Bolten, making claim against the Spanish Gov- 
ernment for alleged unlawful imprisonment in Cuba. 
The same will be given due consideration. 

I am, etc., Richard Olney. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Richelieu. 

Department of State, 

Washington, November 1, 1895. 

Sir: Tour communications of the 25th of September and 3d ultimo 
have been received, wherein you complain of unlawful imprisonment 
by the Cuban authorities and ask this Government to obtain an indem- 
nity for you from the Spanish Government. 

The matter will receive due consideration. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, Richard Olney, 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney. 

November 8, 1895. 

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith power of attorney from 
Gustave Richelieu in favor of John W. Douglass and Alexander Porter 
Morse, in prosecution of a claim by the said Richelieu for pecuniary 
indemnity against Spain for arbitrary arrest and false imprisonment, 
etc., by authorities of Spain at Santiago de Cuba, during a period of 
sixty-two days. 

Memorials on behalf of said Richelieu have heretofore been filed at 
the Department. 

I am, etc., Alexander Porter Morse. 

IS 



274 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

Power of attorney. 

Know all men by these presents : 

That I, Gustave Richelieu, a native of France and a citizen of the United States 
by naturalization, resident in the city of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania, have 
made, constituted, and appointed, and by these presents do constitute and appoint 
John W. Douglass and Alexander Porter Morse my true and lawful attorneys, irre- 
vocable, for me and in my name, place, and stead, hereby annulling and revoking all 
former powers of attorney or authorizations whatever in the premises, to present my 
claim against Spain for arrest and imprisonment by authorities of Spain at Santiago 
de Cuba, and for the seizure and appropriation of the sloop Yankee Doodle on the 23d 
of February, 1895, and to, from time to time, furnish any further evidence necessary 
or that may be demanded, giving and granting to my said attorneys full power and 
authority to do and perform all and every act and thing whatsoever requisite and 
necessary to be done in and about the premises as fully to all intents and purposes 
as I might or could do if personally present at the doing thereof, with full power of 
substitution and revocation, and to receipt and sign all vouchers, hereby ratifying 
and confirming all that my said attorneys or their substitute may or shall lawfully 
do or cause to be done by virtue hereof. And I hereby request that any certificates 
or drafts in payment thereof be sent to me, in care of my said attorneys. 

In witness whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal this 23d day of September, 1895. 

[SEAL.] GUSTAVK RICHELIEU. 

In presence of — 

G. M. Perreard, 

506 and 508 Fourteenth street NW. 
I3P Signature of claimant must be attested by two witnesses. 

District of Columbia, ss: 

Be it known, that on this 23d day of September, in the year eighteen hundred and 
eighty-five, before me, the undersigned, a notary public in and for said District, 
personally appeared Gustave Richelieu, to me well known to be the identical person 
who executed the foregoing letter of attorney, and the same having been first fully 
read over to him and the contents thereof duly explained, acknowledged the same 
to be his act and deed, and that I have no interest, present or prospective, in the 
claim. 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal of office 
the day and year last above written. 

[seal.] Thos. B. Huyck, Notary Public. 

ISP If not acknowledged before the clerk of a court of record of the proper 
county under his seal of office, then clerk must certify to the official character and 
signature of the officer before whom this is executed. 



Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney. 

60 Wall Street, New York, December £7, 1895. 

Will you kindly inform me what, if any, action has been taken by 
the State Department in the matter of the memorial of August Bolten, 
stating the fact of his arbitrary arrest and imprisonment in Cuba and 
praying for the interposition of our Government with the Government 
of Spain in his behalf? 

Captain Bolten's affidavit was mailed to you June 13, 1895, and I had 
the honor of a response from you, acknowledging its receipt and sug- 
gesting that, if I embodied the affidavit in the shape of a memorial, 
in accordance with the rules of your Department, such memorial 
would be presented to the Spanish Government. This I did, and 
mailed a memorial to you on October 2, 1895, and had the like honor of 
a response acknowledging its receipt and assuring its being given 
due consideration. 

I reiterate my belief in the merit of Captain Bolten's claim and in 
the truthfulness of his statements. 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 275 

I should be pleased and thankful to learn what the present situa- 
tion is. 

Yours, very respectfully, David Gordon. 



Mr. Adee to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 

Washington, February 24, 1896. 
Sir: I do not find, among the papers in the claim of Gustave Rich- 
elieu against the Government of Spain for imprisonment in Cuba, any 
evidence of the claimant's citizenship. In his power of attorney to 
you, which was filed in the Department under date of November 8, 
1895, Mr. Richelieu claims to be a native of France and a citizen of 
the United States by naturalization. Our consul at Santiago de Cuba, 
in his report concerning Richelieu's imprisonment, speaks of him as a 
citizen of the United States, but before presenting the claim to the 
Imperial Government of Spain it will be necessary for Mr. Richelieu to 
file a certified copy of the record of his naturalization. 
I am, etc., 

Alvey A. Adee, 
Second Assistant Secretary. 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney. 

March 11, 1896. 

Sir: I am in receipt of a communication from the Department of 
State, informing me that the record of naturalization of Gustave Riche- 
lieu has not been filed, and asking that the same should be forwarded at 
once, so that the Department may proceed to take such steps on behalf 
of his associate (Bolten) and himself as it may deem proper. I have 
called upon Mr. Richelieu to forward this record, but up to this time it 
has not been received. Whatever is the cause of this delay, it seems 
to me that the presentation of the case of Mr. Bolten, whose papers are 
complete, should not longer be postponed. 

The arbitrary arrest and long and harsh imprisonment of these indi- 
viduals by the Spanish authorities at Santiago de Cuba seems to have 
been without cause or justification. The statement of the circumstances 
of their arrest and cruel treatment show a wanton outrage on the part of 
the Spanish authorities, which is fully confirmed by the dispatches 
of the United States consul at Santiago. These individuals appear to 
have been within the protection of the rule of international law which 
was laid down by Mr. Webster in the case of the Creole, and which was 
maintained by the umpire, Mr. Bates, in the decision before the Com- 
mission of Claims under the convention of February 8, 1853, between 
the United States and Great Britain. 

Stress of weather and overruling necessity drove them into a Cuban 
port for shelter under circumstances which entitle them to the treat- 
ment which the comity, the courtesy, and the common sense of justice 
of all civilized states approves. So far as I am informed or the record 
discloses there was no probable cause for their arrest. 

As Mr. Richelieu is moving from place to place, it is impossible to say 
when I will again hear from him; but so soon as he produces a copy of 
his record of naturalization, it will be forwarded to the Department. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Alexander Porter Morse. 



27G GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Gordon. 

Department of State, 

Washington, March 18, 189t 
Sir : I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of December 
27 last, ami to say that the claim of Capt. August Bolten has been held 
to await the perfection of the claim of his companion and fellow suf- 
ferer, Gustave Richelieu, in the hope of presenting both claims together. 
As there appears, however, no immediate prospect of the complete 
establishment of Richelieu's right to the intervention of this Govern- 
ment, the claim of the former will now be forwarded alone, without 
further delay, to the United States minister at Madrid, for presentation 
to the Spanish Government. 

I am, etc., Richard Olney. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

No. 483.] Department of State, 

Washington, March 18, 1896. 

Sir: I inclose a copy of the memorial of August Bolten, a citizen of 
the United States, against the Government of Spain. This memorial 
was filed in the Department by Mr. David Gordon, attorney for Bolten, 
October 2, 1895. For your further information, I inclose you a copy of 
Executive Document No. 224, House of Representatives, Fifty-fourth 
Congress, first session, being a message from the President to the House 
of Representatives transmitting correspondence relative to affairs in 
Cuba. Pages 111 to 133 of this pamphlet relate to the cause of Mr. 
Bolten's complaint, and contain the reports of our consular officers in 
Cuba in regard to the injury done him by the authorities in Cuba. 

The facts as alleged by Mr. Bolten are, in brief, that in an endeavor 
to pass in a small open boat from one Haitian port to another around 
the northwestern point of that island, he was swept by the wind and 
current to the coast of Cuba. Notwithstanding the facts tbat he was 
driven upon the coast of Cuba by stress of weather, and that he landed 
in a small open boat, a seaman in distress, with a single companion and 
no arms, papers, or other thing to excite suspicion of unlawful intent, 
he was seized by the military authorities February 23, 1895, and was 
not released from prison until May 3 following. During, and it is 
believed as a result of, his imprisonment he contracted yellow fever 
and suffered much distress and injury to health in other respects, all 
growing out of the treatment received during his apparently unjust and 
uncalled for confinement. 

Mr. Bolten asks for an indemnity of $10,000 from the Spanish Gov- 
ernment for the injury inflicted upon him by the Spanish authorities in 
Cuba. 

The seizure is believed to have been in violation of article 8 of the 
treaty of 1795, which provides for the hospitable reception of American 
citizens who through stress of weather are driven upon Spanish terri- 
tory. His arrest and the proceedings inaugurated against him by the 
military authorities are believed also to have been in violation of the pro- 
tocol of January 12, 1877, which provides that citizens of the United 
States taken without arms in hand shall be tried by the ordinary civil 
tribunals, to the exclusion of any special tribunal, and when arrested 
and imprisoned shall be deemed to have been arrested or imprisoned 



GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 277 

by order of the civil authority. Mr. Bolten was held in arrest by the 
military authorities from February 23rd until the 21st of March, when 
by the action of the superior authorities of the island he was turned 
over, without being - released, to the civil tribunal of the Province of 
Santiago. This tardy compliance with the treaty provisions seems not 
to have in any way benefited Mr. Bolten, as he was detained in tha 
same prison without knowledge of the charges pending against him 
until his release, without trial, on May 3 following. 

The correspondence with the consul at Santiago de Cuba indicates 
that there was a secret judicial inquiry or search for evidence against 
Mr. Bolten, and that he was released in consequence of a failure to 
obtain any evidence whatever to justify his arrest and imprisonment. 
You are directed to present this claim to the Spanish minister for for- 
eign affairs, and ask that it may receive his early attention. 
I am, etc., 

BlCHARD OLNEY. 



Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney. 

60 Wall Street, New York, March 19, 1896. 
Dear Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favor of 18th 
instant conveying the intelligence of the prospective presentation of 
Capt. August Bolten's claim to the Spanish Government. 
I thank you sincerely for the same. 

Yours, very respectfully, David Gordon. 



Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

No. 499.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, April 4, 1896. 
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 483 of 
the 18th ultimo with inclosures relative to the case of Mr. August 
Bolten. According to your instructions, I have presented the case to 
the Spanish minister of state and asked that it may receive his early 
attention. 

I am, etc., Hannis Taylor. 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney. 

July 23, 1896. 

Sir: I inclose herewith certificate of the declaration to become a 
citizen of the United States of Gustave Laymet, otherwise "Gustave 
Bichelien," together with explanatory affidavit of Gustave Bichelieu, 
who heretofore, namely, on the 26th day of September and the 3d day 
of October, :&\)o, transmitted to the Department of State memorials 
setting forth his arbitrary arrest and imprisonment by authorities of 
Spain at Santiago de Cuba, and praying the intervention of the United 
States in securing from Spain pecuniary indemnity on account of such 
unlawful arrest and imprisonment. 

I request that the inclosed papers be attached to the memorials filed, 



278 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

with a view to their use in making a demand upon Spain for pecuniary 
indemnity in favor of said Eichelieu by reason of said unlawful arrest 
and imprisonment by authorities of Spain in violation of international 
law and treaty stipulations between Spain and the United States. 
I am, etc., 

Alexander Porter Morse, 

Attorney for Gustave Richelieu. 



Personally appeared before me, Frank H. Mason, clerk of the United States dis- 
trict court within and for the district of Massachusetts, Gustave Richelieu, residing 
at 109 D street, Boston, in said district, who, being duly sworn, deposes and says 
that affiant is the identical individual who on the 26th day of September and the 3d 
day of October, 1895, transmitted to the Department of State of the United States 
of North America memorials setting forth his arbitrary arrest and imprisonment by 
the authorities of Spain at Santiago de Cuba, at the dates and under the circum- 
stances stated, and praying the intervention of the United States in securing pecuni- 
ary indemnity from Spain in redress and vindication of affiant's rights as a citizen 
of the United States by naturalization; affiant reiterates the charges against Spain 
on account of such arbitrary arrest without cause, and the cruel treatment inflicted 
by Spain ; and affiant further says that affiant declared his intention to become a 
citizen of the United States before the United States district court at Portland, in 
the State of Oregon, the 30th day of May, A. D. 1872, under the name and descrip- 
tion of Gustave Laymet, and says that affiant is the identical individual whose cer- 
tificate of such declaration is hereunto annexed and made part of this affidavit; 
and affiant further says that "Laymet" was his father's name, and by that name he 
was called and known until October, 1884, when affiant adopted the name of Gustave 
Richelieu, "Richelieu" heing the name of affiant's mother; affiant further says that 
affiant has for more than three years been a seaman on board merchant vessels of the 
United States and is entitled to protection as a citizen of the United States, and at 
the time of the arbitrary arrest hereinbefore mentioned was pursuing affiant's occu- 
pation as a seafaring man. 

Gustave Richelieu. 

Subscribed and sworn to by the above-named Gustave Richelieu before me, at 
Boston, in said district of Massachusetts, this 22d day of July, A. D. 1896. 

[seal.] Frank H. Mason, 

Cleric of United States District Court, District of Massachusetts. 



Copy of declaration. 

United States district court. 

United States of America, District of Oregon, ss : 

I, Gustave Laymet, being first duly sworn, declare and say that it is bona fide my 
intention to become a citizen of the United States of America, and to absolutely 
and entirely renounce and abjure forever all allegiance and fidelity to every and any 
foreign prince, potentate, State, or sovereignty whatever, and particularly to the 
Government of France, of whom I am a subject. 

Gustave Laymet. 

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 30th day of May, A, D. 1872. 

Ralph Wilcox, Cleric. 

United States of America, District of Oregon, ss : 

I, E. D. McKee, clerk of the district court of the United States for the district of 
Oregon, do hereby certify that the foregoing is a full, true, and correct copy of the 
original declaration and oath of intention on file and remaining of record in my office. 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name and affixed the seal 
of the said district court, at Portland, in said district, this 2d July, 1896. 

[seal,] E. D. McKee, 

Cleric of the District Court of the United States far the District of Oregon. 



GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 279 

Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney. 

Washington, D. 0., August 18, 1896. 

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith brief in support of the 
claim of Gustave Richelieu, seaman, against Spain for pecuniary indem- 
nity on account of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for sixty-two days 
by the administrative authorities at Santiago de Cuba. I also transmit 
an additional affidavit of the complainant, which has been forwarded to 
the undersigned to be filed with the papers heretofore submitted to the 
Department. 

The official correspondence relating to the case of Richelieu and his 
companion, August Bolten, appears in Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth 
Congress, first session, pages 111-134, and discloses a case of cruel 
treatment of two suffering seamen, who, at the time of the occurrences 
complained of, were entitled to the protection of the United States, and 
were by the law of nations and treaty stipulations exempt from appre- 
hension by Spain. 

On behalf of complainants the intervention of the Government is 
solicited, in order that such redress may be obtained as the ends of 
justice and the exigency of the case demand. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Alexander Porter Morse. 



Affidavit. 

During the first -week in October, 1893, I left Philadelphia for the purpose of ship- 
ping at Wilmington, N. C, on board, of the schooner Orlando, belonging to the firm of 
Green & Co., of Boston, bound to Port au Prince, Haiti, * * * at St. Marc, a 
small town situated at a distance of 25 miles, * * * where the vessel loaded with 
logwood for New York. Being somewhat unwell. I applied for my discharge. I had 
contracted an intermittent fever at Wilmington. After landing I called on Mr. Miot, 
the American consular agent. I next proceeded to Port au Prince, where I estab- 
lished a modern restaurant at No. 15 rue Americaine, Port au Prince, the capital of 
the Republic. I gave up the restaurant in the montb of July, 1894, and Dr. Terrestre 
(Terres?), the consul, settled up my affairs for me. 

Minister Smytlie was then on leave of absence, and during his leave lost his wife. 
From that time until the month of February, 1895, I had charge of the business of 
Raphael Agramonte, Nos. 9 and 11 rue des Cesars, Port au Prince. There I made 
the acquaintance of August Bolten, who had landed from the brig Katheline. He 
worked for the minister in charge of the Episcopal church, and that minister made 
us a present of the boat. We fixed it up and repaired it, and made a new sail for it. 
That minister, moreover, wrote to the consul at Santiago, who came to see while 
we were in prison at Santiago and told us that that letter had stupefied the Spanish 
authorities, and that their whole intrigue was broken up. I think that that letter 
must be at the Department. 

When we left Port au Prince we had our clearance from the legation, counter- 
signed by the commandant of the place, for the Cape. This proves that we had no 
dealings with the insurgents as we have been suspected of having. 

We wished to engage in turtle catching, each turtle-shell being worth $11, 
undressed, and we were encouraged to do so by a merchant, who told us that he 
would take all that we could get. 

If the wind had not driven us onto the coast of Cuba we should still be at the Cape, 
and I should, I dare say, be in a bettor pecuniary situation than I now am. 

We had no arms and had lost our mast, sail, and ropes, our boat having capsized. 
We were, moreover, entirely out of provisions when we reached Alligator Bay. That 
was the third day that we had been without food. 

The examining judge having telegraphed to Mole St. Nicholas, became convinced 
that we had left without any other person with us and without any arms. When we 
were arrested I told the commandant that if he would telegraph at once he would 
be convinced; be paid no attention to this, however, but, after we had been turned 
over to the civil authorities, the examining magistrate, who is a perfect gentleman^ 



280 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

had the kindness to listen to us, telegraphed, and was convinced in forty-eight hours 
that we were innocent. The others might have become convinced of our innocence, 
but they were not willing to take time to do so, notwithstanding the energetic pro- 
tests of the consul. They kept us in confinement for sixty-two days. I trust that 
the record kept by the consul gives more specific details of all the trouble that the 
Department had to get us out of that prison. 

I contracted pains in that prison which I shall have for the rest of my life, and am 
troubled with a great lack of energy. If I had been a British or a German subject 
I should certainly have had redress. John Bull is prouder than Uncle Sam. 

Now, I came to America in 1865, and made a declaration of my intentiou to become 
an American citizen in 1872 at Portland, Oreg. I worked for the American Govern- 
ment in 1884 as a steward on board of the survey schooner Eagle. 

The first American vessel on which I shipped was the bark Rosivell, Captain Saw- 
yer, of Boston, Mass. I shipped on board of this vessel at Portland, Oreg., in 1872. 
We lost eight men off Cape Horn, who were washed overboard by a heavy sea. We 
afterwards put into Valparaiso, Chile. I there shipped on board of the Governor 
Langdon, of Boston, bound to Iquique, Peru, where she was to take in a cargo of 
nitrate for Hamburg. In 1876 I shipped on board of the G-. B. Boland, of New 
York, Captain Baker, which was bound to Cadiz, Spain, to get a cargo of salt for 
Gloucester, Mass. Since then I have always remained on shore or made voyages to 
the West Indies to get sugar and molasses. I made these voyages on board of the 
following vessels: 

Brig Rocky Glen, Captain Bray; schooner Jennie Logwood (LocJcwood^), Captain 
Thomas; schooner Sarah Lawrence, Captain Faro; schooner Raymond T. Maul, 
Captain Smith; schooner Lizzie Young, Captain Pierce; brig Daisy Boyton, Captain 
Harding. 

In 1892 or 1893 I shipped on board of the barkentine Francis, of Baltimore, for 
Brazil. I have also been employed on board of several vessels, the names of whose 
captains I have forgotten. I have been employed on board of American vessels for 
twenty years. The year that I was on board of the United States schooner Eagle 
was the year when Mr. Cleveland was first elected. The name of Gustave Laymet 
will be easily found among the records of the administrative surveys. During that 
same year I lost my family and took the name of Gustave Richelieu. 

Gustave Richelieu. 

United States District Court, District of Massachusetts, ss : 

Boston, July SO, 1896. 

Then appeared the above-named Gustave Richelieu and made oath before me that 
the foregoing statements by him subscribed by him are true. 

[seal.] Frank H. Mason, Cleric. 



Before the Department of State. In the matter of the claim of Gustave Richelieu 
against Spain on account of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. 

Brief on oehalf of complainant. 

STATEMENT OF CASE. 

The complainant, a citizen by birth of France, came to the United States in 1865, 
and has resided in the United States since that date. On the 30th day of May, 1872, 
In the city of Portland, State of Oregon, and under the name of Gustave Laymet, he 
declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States. (Certificate of the 
clerk of the United States district court; affidavit of complainant.) 

Subsequent to such declaration he has served as seaman or steward on American 
merchant vessels for more than twenty years. A portion of this service was as 
steward on the Government survey schooner Eagre. (Additional affidavit of com- 
plainant.) In 1893 he embarked at the port of Wilmington, N. C, on the schooner 
Orlando, belonging to the American firm of Green & Co., of Boston, destined for 
Port au Prince, Haiti, where she went to take a cargo of Campeachy wood for New 
York. Having been taken ill with fever at Port au Prince, he secured his discharge, 
and for some time remained at the last-mentioned port engaged in keeping a restau- 
rant. Here he made the acquaintance of August Bolton, a citizen by naturalization 
of the United States, who had been discharged from the brig Eaiheline. Having 
concluded to enter together upon the adventure of turtle fishing, they, with the 
assistance of the minister of the English Episcopal Church, secured a small fishing 
smack and started upon their voyage in search of turtles. On the 8th of February, 
1895, they sailed from the port of Port au Prince for Cape Haitien with regular 
papers issued from the American consulate, identifying them and recognizing their 



GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 281 

Americm citizenship. (Memorials of Bolten and Richelieu, Ex. Doc. 224, Fifty- 
fourth Congress, first session, pp. 112, 1'3, 118, 119.) 

Stress of weather disabled their boat so seriously that they put into a small port 
called Capo do la Bay. Here they were arrested by soldiers, who carried them 
before an officer, who, after examining tlieir papers, released them. At this port 
they remained twenty-four hours, repaired the boat as best they could, and proceeded 
to St. Nicholas Mole, Haiti, where they remained one day. On the 13th of February, 
1895, they set sail for Cape Haitien, but wind and current being against them, and 
very strung, they were driven out to sea. After drifting about for three days, two 
of which they were without food and with but little drinking water, they came within 
sight of the Cuban coast and made for the nearest port, which proved to be Caimanera, 
known as Alligator Bay, which they reached on the 16th of February. Here their 
papers were inspected by the captain of the port and by the United States consul at 
Guantanamo, who gave them some aid and advised them to sail for Santiago de Cuba. 
Accordingly, on the 19th of February, they set sail for that port and arrived on the 
23d of February, when they at once reported to the captain of the port, who insti- 
tuted an examination of boat and baggage. They asked to be conducted to the office 
of the United States consul, but instead of being directed there they were sent under 
guard to prison, notwithstanding their earnest protest. Here they were contined in 
a loathsome prison, in company of the lowest description of criminals, for sixty-two 
days, under circumstances of indignity and outrage on the part of the Spanish authori- 
ties, which are detailed in the memorials on file in the Department of State. The 
United States consul made earnest and repeated efforts to secure their release, but 
his efforts were of no avail until after the lapse of the long imprisonment mentioned. 
The complainants have consistently protested that neither during the times men- 
tioned, nor at any other time or place, have they engaged in what is called a filibus- 
tering expedition agaiust the Spanish Government, nor have they in any way taken 
part in any revolutionary movement in Cuba or elsewhere; and no testimony or 
proof was produced by Spain during their long imprisonment showing or tending to 
show that they had at any time or place engaged in such unlawful acts. 

The case in brief is this : A fishing smack, bound from one Haytien port to another, 
bearing two half-starved seamen entitled to the protection of the United States, is 
forced by stress of weather and lack of food into a Cuban port. They at once report 
to the captain of the port, produce their papers for inspection, explain their dis- 
tressing situation, and request to be directed to the United States consul. Instead 
of complying with this request their boat was seized and, without arraignment or 
service of judicial process, they were placed under guard, conveyed to prison, and 
locked up. (Memorials of Bolten and. Richelieu, pp. 1 and 2. Ex. Doc. No. 224, 
Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, p. 113.) The boat carried no cargo or passen- 
gers — indeed, there was no accommodation for either, and there was no mystery or 
concealment in their movements. Upon being informed of their arrest, the United 
States consul promptly went to the prison, interviewed them, and being satisfied 
with the truth of their representations, secured their release. The next day, while 
at the United States consulate, they were rearrested upon a fictitious charge, which 
was equally dimsy and groundless as that upon which they were first apprehended. 
(Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, p. 113.) They were then con- 
veyed to a loathsome prison, where they were subject to cruel treatment, and held 
for sixty-two days, notwithstanding the earnest and repeated remonstrances of the 
accredited representatives of the United States. (lb., pp. 113-133. — Memorials of 
Bolten and Richelieu.) 

One of these, Bolten, was a naturalized citizen of the United States ; and a demand 
for pecuniary indemnity in the sum of $10,000 on account of arrest and false imprison- 
ment has been submitted to Spain. The present brief is submitted in behalf of his 
associate, Richelieu. 

The preliminary question which arises upon this state of facts is: 

Is the complainant Richelieu entitled to the protection of the United States as 

against Spain? 

On behalf of the complainant it is respectfully submitted that he is, upon two 
grounds : First, by reason of his declaration to become a citizen of the United States, 
and the acquisition of domicile therein; and, second, by reason of his service for 
more than twenty years as seaman on board merchant vessels of the United States 
after his declaration to become a citizen. 

1. As against a third power, complainant has "a quasi-right to protection" after 
he has declared his intention to become a citizen. 

(Secretary of State Frelinghuysen to Mr. Wallace, Foreign Relations of the United 



282 GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

States, pp. 552, 560; Secretary Bayard's Instructions to Diplomatic Agents of the 
United States, 1885; Wharton, Int. Dig., sec. 198.) A question as to status or cit- 
izenship arising in the United States is determinable by our law. 

The questions: Who are citizens, on what conditions are persons admitted to cit- 
izenship, are questions of constitutional law which each State determines for itself. 
And so as to protection and allegiance. (Opinions of Attorney-General, A^ol. 12, p. 
319.) 

By act of Congress, March 3, 1863 (12 Stat. L., p. 731), aliens who had made a dec- 
laration of intention to become citizens were made subject to the military draft. 

If the status of alien -born residents in respect to the country of adoption warrants 
their being drafted into the service of the State, after declaration of intention, con- 
sistency and justice would seem to require that while in tbis inchoate state of cit- 
izenship they should receive protection from outrage and indignity at the hands of 
an offending State, particularly if such State is not the State of origin. 

It is not, however, necessary to claim that the mere declaration to become a cit- 
izen changed the nationality of complainant; but such declaration, together with an 
established domicile extending over a long period of years, did entitle him to demand 
the protection of the United States. 

A person domiciled in the United States is entitled "to onr care and consideration, 
and in most circumstances may be regarded as under our protection." (Mr. Marcy, 
Secretary of State, to Mr. Buchanan, March 17, 1854. MSS. Inst., Gr. Brit., Whar- 
ton, Dig., sec. 198.) By the personal instructions of the Department of State, issued 
by Mr. Bayard, Secretary of State, in 1885, in section 118 it is provided that "nothing 
herein contained is to be construed as in any way abridging the right of persons 
domiciled in the United States, but not naturalized therein, to maintain internation- 
ally their status of domicile, and to claim protection from this Government in the 
maintenance of such status." (Wharton, Int. Dig., sec. 198.) 

" The rights which spring from domicile in the United States, especially when 
coupled with a declaration of intention to become a citizen, are worthy of definition 
by statute. The stranger coming hither with intent to remain, establishing his resi- 
dence in our midst, contributing to the general welfare, and by his voluntary act 
declaring his purpose to assume the responsibilities of citizenship, thereby gains an 
inchoate status which legislation may properly define." (President Cleveland, First 
Annual Message, 1885.) 

It will be observed that in the opinion of President Cleveland the right exists, 
and it is desirable that it should be defined by appropriate legislation. 

2. By reason of his service as seaman on board a vessel of the United States, forced 
by stress of weather into a Spanish port, complainant is entitled to the protection 
of the United States against Spain. 

Whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the extent of the protection 
which an alien who has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United 
States, and has established a domicile therein, may properly claim from the United 
States, it would seem to be clear that an alien who has declared his intention to 
become a citizen, and has served as seaman on board merchant vessels of the United 
States for more than twenty years, and who, being forced into a Spanish port on a 
vessel of the United States, and is arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned by Spanish 
administrative authorities, is in a situation to appeal to the United States for redress. 

Such a case seems to be covered by the express provisions of section 29, act of 
June, 1872 (Stat. L., vol. 17, p. 268), and of the treaty of 1795 between Spain and the 
United States, Articles VI, VII, and VIII. 

Section 29 of the act of June 7, 1872, is carried into the Eevised Statutes of the 
United States under the title " Naturalization," section 2174, although it is not in 
a strict sense a "naturalization" statute. But it is a provision "for the further 
protection of seamen." The act of June 7, 1872, was entitled "An act to authorize 
the appointment of shipping commissioners by the several circuit courts of the 
United States, to superintend the shipping and discharge of seamen engaged in mer- 
chant ships belonging to the United States, and for the further protection of seamen." 

This legislation was the result of a comprehensive scheme for the orderly regula- 
tion of American shipping interests and for the betterment and protection of seamen 
engaged on American ships. It had in view the very condition and circumstances 
developed in this case; and the concluding clause of the section applies exactly to 
the case in hand.* 

* "Every seaman, being a foreigner, who declares his intention of becoming a 
citizen of the United States in any competent court, and shall have served three 
years on board of a merchant vessel of the United States subsequent to the date of 
such declaration, may, on his application to any competent court, and the produc- 
tion of his certificate of his declaration, discharge, and good conduct during that 
time, together with the certificate of his declaration to become a citizen, be admitted 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 283 

It is a matter of general knowledge that a large proportion of the seamen on 
American vessels are foreign born, and it was to encourage them to become citizens 
that exceptional and attractive provisions were enacted which facilitated the acqui- 
sition of American citizenship and extended the protectio I of the flag over them 
from the first step taken to change their national character. 

A wise policy and the commercial character of the nation has naturally made the 
United States jealous in the protection of its seamen and prompt in the vindication 
of their rights wherever and by whomsoever assailed. "Trade follows the flag" is 
a maxim of commerce; but there can be no commerce without freedom alike for ships 
and crew. "Free trade and sailor's rights" was the rallying cry of an eventful 
political campaign. And the war, which is sometimes said to have supplemented 
the American Revolution, was waged to assure protection to those who, on the high 
seas as elsewhere, were under the protecting folds of the American flag. 

The first clause of the section admits the foreigner who shall have declared his 
intention and shall have served three years on board a merchant vessel of the United 
States to citizenship. The second clause provides that the foreigner, after such 
declaration and such service, shall be deemed a citizen for the purpose of manning 
and serving on board any merchant vessel of the United States, anything to the 
contrary in any act of Congress notwithstanding. And the third clause — with the 
interpretation of which we are immediately concerned — provides that "such sea- 
man shall, for all purposes of protection as an American citizen, be deemed such, 
after the filing of his declaration of intention to become such citizen." 

The language of the third clause is so plain and explicit that it does not need 
interpretation. And the only question for determination here is : Does the complain- 
ant bring himself within its provisions? It is respectfully submitted that he does; 
and that for all purposes of protection and redress he is to be deemed an American 
citizen at the time of the injuries complained of. It can not be difficult to determine 
to what extent the Government should go in demanding redress from a foreign Gov- 
ernment in the case of an American citizen who has been the victim of similar treat- 
ment under corresponding circumstances. Assuming that Richelieu has made out 
his right to invoke the aid of the United States in obtaining pecuniary indemnity 
from Spain on account of the grievances complained of, we proceed to a consideration 
of the merits of the case aB established by the record. 

II. 

Neither at the time of their first apprehension nor on the occasion of their rearrest 
were complainants amenable to the jurisdiction of the authorities of Spain.* 

The apprehension and confinement of complainants and the seizure of their smack 
was in direct violation of the guaranties contained in Article VIII of the treaty of 
1795 (Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other Powers, pp. 
1008, 1009). By the express language of this article the jurisdiction of the local 
sovereign was waived and suspended in respect of storm or distress driven vessels, 
subjects, and inhabitants; and the United States consul was entirely justified in his 
statement that the complainants were "subject to the provisions contained in Arti- 
cle VIII of the treaty." (Ex. Doc. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, p. 116.) 

When first apprehended they were on their way to the United States consulate to 
report their situation, in compliance with custom, the law of nations, treaty stipu- 
lations, and the laws of the United States; and when rearrested they were actually 
within the consulate. (Memorial of Bolten, p. 3; Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth 

a citizen of the United States; and every seaman, being a foreigner, shall, after his 
declaration to become a citizen of the United States, and after he shall have served 
such three years, be deemed a citizen of the United States for the purpose of 
manning and serving on board any merchant vessel of the United States, anything to 
the contrary in any act of Congress notwithstanding; but such seaman shall, for 
all purposes of protection as an American citizen, be deemed such, after the filing 
of his declaration of intention to become such citizen." 

* "In case the subjects and inhabitants of either party, with their shipping, 
whether public or of war, or private or of merchants, be forced, through stress of 
weather, pursuit of pirates or enemies, or any other urgent necessity, for seeking of 
shelter and harbor, to retreat and enter into any of the rivers, bays, roads, or ports 
belonging to the other party, they shall be received and treated with all humanity, 
and enjoy all favor and protection and help, and they shall be permitted to refresh 
and provide themselves, at reasonable rates, with victuals and all things needful for 
the sustenance of their persons or reparation of their ships and prosecution of their 
voyage; and they shall in no way be hindered from returning out of said ports or 
roads, but may depart when and whither they please, without any let or hindrance." 
(Art. VKI, treaty 1795.) 



284 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

Congress, first session, p. 113; act of Congress, 28th May, 1796, sec 4.) The section here 
referred to requires the master of every vessel of the United. States, any of the crew 
whereof shall have been impressed or detained by any foreign power, to report at 
the first port at which such vessel arrives, if such impressment or detention hap- 
pened on the high seas or if the same happened within any foreigu port, then in the 
port in which the same happened, and immediately make protest, stating the man- 
ner of such impressment or detention, by whom made, together with the name and 
place of residence of the person impressed or detained; distinguishing also whether 
he was an American citizen; and if not, to what nation he belonged. (Rev. Stats. 
U. S., p. 889, sec. 4589.) Persons in this situation are within the express conditions 
of Article VIII of the treaty of 1795, and as such were exempt from the civil or 
military jurisdiction of the local authorities. A representation of the facts which 
brought complainants within these conditions was made to the captain of the port 
immediately on landing, and was repeated to the civil and military authorities of 
Spain. (Memorial of Bolton, p. 3; Ex. Doc. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, 
p. 113 et seq.) 

The truth and accuracy of the statements of complainants have not been impeached 
in any material respect. But the Spanish authorities in Cuba wantonly disregarded 
the law of nations, the treaty stipulations, and the protests of the Department of 
State, communicated through the consul-general and the consul. It is clear that it 
was not ignorance of the obligations which the law of nations and the treaty stipu- 
lations imposed upon Spain in respect of individuals situated as were the complain- 
ants, but it was a vindictive purpose on the part of the authorities to torture these 
unfortunate and destitute seamen as long as it was possible to do so in defiance of 
the United States. 

Article XIX of the treaty of 1795 provides that " consuls shall be reciprocally 
established, with the privileges and powers which those of the most favored nations 
enjoy, in the ports where their consuls reside or are permitted to be." And the con- 
sular convention of February 22, 1870, between Spain and the North German Con- 
federation contains articles exempting storm-driven vessels from local jurisdiction, 
and specifies the functions and privileges of consuls, vice-consuls, and consular 
agents. (Martens, Receuil General de Traites et autres actes relatives aux rapports 
de droit international, Tome XIX, p. 21, et seq.) Under the most- favored-nation 
clause United States consuls in Spain exercise corresponding functions, and are 
entitled to like jurisdiction. 

The outrage which the administrative authorities of Spain at Santiago de Cuba 
inflicted upon complainants in violation of the law of nations, treaty stipulations, 
and the laws of humanity, constitutes an offense against the United States and is an 
indignity to the flag which covered them. The arrest of complainants seems to have 
been made without any sufficient ground or proof that can excuse or palliate the 
arbitrary action of the authorities, while their subjection to unusual cruel treat 
ment and long imprisonment, notwithstanding the evidences of their innocent occu- 
pation furnished almost immediately after arrest by the United States consul and 
others, indicates a studied purpose to inflict punishment upon two American seamen 
whom misfortune had placed in their power, regardless of guilt or innocence. All 
the circumstances of arrest and imprisonment on the part of the authorities, subal- 
tern and superior, point to a lack of good faith and honest action. Two days after 
arrest the United States consul advised the comandancia that complainants were 
entitled to protection as citizens of the United States ; that their papers were in 
regular form; and that their presence in Santiago was due to stress of weather and 
misfortune. And in a few days abundant proof of the truth of their story was 
forthcoming. (Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, pp. 113, 116 
128, and 129.) 

On the 13th of April, 1895, the United States consul advised the Department of 
State as follows: "There have been no definite charges, no release, and the men 
have been imprisoned seven weeks to-day, and I can see no reasonable ground to 
expect a speedy trial." (lb., p. 123.) 

The excuse given for the rearrest of complainants was stated to be that "the 
comandancia had received word that the men had left Guantanamo without a per- 
mit." This reason for arrest appears to have been an afterthought of the authorities. 
If it were true, the omission was not an offense which justified the harsh treatment to 
which they were subjected. Guantanamo, like Santiago, was a harbor of refuge, 
and not a port of destination or departure. " This charge," wrote the United States 
consul, "is admitted to be no more than a pretext for continued imprisonment." 
(Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, p. 112.} Subsequent events 
proved the correctness of this declaration of the consul. (lb., pp. 112 and 133.) At 
a date not stated, but which was prior to May 4, 1895, General Salcedo, civil governor, 
announced to the correspondent of the United Press, "that the Government found 
the men absolutely innocent." (lb., ib., p. 130.) 

The papers in their possession fully substantiated their story and were sufficient 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND A.UGUST BOLTEN. 285 

to entitle them to full protection. (Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first 
session, pp. 111-120.) 

Whether or not complainants had a sufficient or regular clearance from Port au 
Prince was no concern of the Spanish authorities at Santiago de Cuba. Both the 
port of departure (Port au Prince) and the port of destination (Cape Haytien) were 
outside the jurisdiction of Spain. As the United States consul has pointed out, this 
was a mere pretext by which it was sought to excuse arbitrary acts and to justify 
procrastination on the part of the local authorities. The voyage contemplated did 
not even include any Cuban port as a port of call. It was stress of weather and 
lack of food that carried complainants against their will into Cuban harbors. 

In view of the whole record it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the shift- 
ing charges were gotten up by the authorities to meet recurrent emergencies, were 
fictitious, and were known to be so when made. The holding of the complainants 
by the " military officials" for more than a month and their subsequent transfer to 
the " civil authorities" under the circumstances has all the appearance of a scheme 
to harry and persecute these unfortunate seamen. The fact that they were recog- 
nized as citizens of the United States seemed to militate against them and not in 
their favor. These authorities were fertile in originating charges, for it appears 
that the supposed act of the United States consul in furnishing complainants with 
American newspapers containing a picture of Jos6 Marti, a Cuban revolutionist, 
constituted an offense which was to be imputed to the men under arrest. But treat- 
ment of this character of American citizens and American interests in the island of 
Cuba has been going on for forty years, and, as the archives of the Department 
abundantly testify, the forbearance of the Government of the United States has 
been met by the persistent and continuous spoliation and outrage of its citizens. 
(Mr. Fish, Secretary of State, to Mr. Lopez Roberts, December 28, 1870, cited in 
Wharton's Int. Dig., vol. 3, p. 3402 ; Proceedings of the United States and. Spanish 
Claims Commission, under agreement February 12, 1871; Ex. Doc. 224, Fifty-fourth 
Congress, first session.) 

The sole subject of inquiry to which the authorities might have properly or right- 
fully addressed themselves was, Did the apparent facts bring complainants within 
the conditions of Article VIII, treaty of 1795? 

That they did the local authorities had the evidence of their own eyes, the uncon- 
tradicted statement of complainants, and the assurance of the United States consul, 
which was almost immediately confirmed^ and which, in default of proof to the 
contrary, should have been accepted as conclusive. 

III. 

Having been forced through stress of weather and urgent necessity into a Cuban 
port while navigating an American fishing smack, complainant and his associate, 
August Bolten, were exempted from officious and arbitrary interference of the 
local Spanish authorities by the law of nations and by stipulations of the treaty 
of 1795 between Spain and the United States. 

THE LAW OF NATIONS. 

This immunity from local jurisdiction of vessels, crew, and passengers, driven into 
a foreign port through stress of weather or urgent necessity, was forcibly stated by 
Mr. Webster in the correspondence with Lord Ashburton in the case of the Creole.; 
and the rule of law and the comity and practice of nations is well established by 
authority. 

"A vessel driven by stress of weather has a right to enter, even by force, into a 
foreign port." (Vattel, Book 2, ch. 9, sec. 123; Puffendorf, Book 3, ch. 3, sec. 8.) 

A vessel compelled by stress of weather or other unavoidable necessity has a 
right to seek shelter in any harbor, as incident to her right to navigate the ocean, 
until the danger is past, and she can proceed again in safety. 

The effect of stress of weather in exempting vessels from liability to local law, 
when they are driven by it within the ordinary jurisdiction of a foreign state, is well 
settled by authority in various classes of cases, viz, in reference to the blockade of 
harbors and coasts; of prohibited intercourse of vessels between certain ports that 
are subject to quarantine regulations; intercourse between certain countries or sec- 
tions of countries which is interdicted from motives of mercantile policy; and in 
cases of liability to general custom duties. (The Frederick Molkel, Rob. Rep., 87; 
The Columbia, ib., 156 ; The Juffrow Maria Schroeder, 3 Rob., 153 ; The Hoffnung, 6 ib., 
116; The Mary, 1 Gall., 206; Prince v. U. S., 2 Gall., 204; Peisch v. Ware, 4 Crauch, 
347; Lord Raymond, 388, 501; Reeves's Law of Shipping, 203; The Francis and Eliza, 
8 Wheat, 398; Sea Laws, arts. 29, 30, and 31; The Gertrude, 3 Story Rep., 68.) 

"It can only be a people who have made but little progress in civilization that 
would not permit foreign vessels to seek safety in their ports, when driven there by 



286 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

stress of weather, except under the charge of paying impost duties on their cargoes 
or on penalty of confiscation, where the cargo consisted of prohibited goods." (The 
Gertrude, 3 Story Rep., 68.) 

Mr. Webster, Secretary of State, in his diplomatic letter of August 1, 1842, to 
Lord Ashburton, British minister at Washington, contended that if a vessel be 
driven by stress of weather or other necessity, or carried by unlawful force into a 
British port, even if it be a prohibited or blockaded port, that necessity exempted 
the vessel from all penalty and hazard. These immunities were presumed to exist 
as a part of civilization and to be allowed until expressly retracted. This presump- 
tion is deemed to be part of the voluntary and adopted law of nations. There has 
been occasional criticism of some of the propositions advanced by Mr. Webster in 
this correspondence,* but no authoritative or judicial dissent can be produced. 
Although advanced arguendo, there has not been in modern times any respectable 
dissent from so much of Mr. Webster's propositions as related to exemption from 
local jurisdiction of storm-driven or refuge-seeking vessels, their passengers, crew, 
and cargo. A distinction has, however, been drawn between the status of merchant 
vessels voluntarily entering foreign ports for purposes of trade and such as have 
entered or been driven in by stress of weather or other necessity. And the proposi- 
tions of Mr. Webster, which have been sometimes questioned, are those which relate 
to the former. 

But even in respect to the former, the practice under the influence of the law of 
nations, and by the comity of civilized modern States, as Mr. Webster well insists, 
is for the sovereign of the port to waive in favor of the sovereign of the flag the 
exercise of jurisdiction in relation to all matters except those which concern police 
regulation, or affect the peace and quiet of the port. (The Exchange, 7 Cranch, 140; 
Wildenhus's Case, 120 U. S., p. 1; decision of the supreme court of Grenada, Nicara- 
gua, in re Captain McCrea, of the P. M. S. S. Honduras, Foreign Relations of U. S., 
1892, pp. 45-49; Dana's Wheaton, Int. Law, No. 95, note 58; Halleck, Int. Law, 
p. ; Albany Law Journal, Nov. 1, 1890, Vol. XLII, p. 345 et seq., where the authori- 
ties are collated; Mr. Gresham, Secretary of State, to Mr. Huntington, Foreign Rela- 
tions of the United States, 1894, pp. 296,297.) 

In the cases of the Creole, the brig Enterprize, and the Rermosa, which were before 
the Commission of Claims, under the convention of February 8, 1853, between Great 
Britain and the United States, there was full discussion of these propositions in 
direct application to the peculiar occurrences which had given rise to this corre- 
spondence. The advocate of the United States had laid down on behalf of the 
claimants several contentions, which set out in substance the position announced by 
Mr. Webster. These were resisted arguendo by the advocate of Great Britain. 
Upon submission, Mr. Bates, the umpire, took the following positions, and made 
awards in favor of the claimants: "The Creole was ona voyage, sanctioned and pro- 
tected by the laws of the United States and by the law of nations. Her right to 
navigate the ocean could not be questioned, anil, as growing out of that right, the 
right to seek shelter or enter the ports of a friendly power in case of distress or of 
unavoidable necessity. * * * These rights, sanctioned by the law of nations, 
viz, the right to navigate the ocean and to seek shelter in case of distress or other 
unavoidable circumstances, and to retain over the ship, her cargo and passengers the 
laws of her country, must be respected by all nations, for no independent nation 
would submit to their violation." (Report of the Commission on British and Ameri- 
can Claims, Convention, February 8, 1853, pp. 244, 245.) 

It was well said by the United States commissioner, with whose conclusions on 
this branch of the case the umpire agreed, that "The right of a State bordering on 
the ocean to a given extent over the waters immediately adjoining attaches for cer- 
tain fiscal purposes and purposes for protection. But the jurisdiction thus obtained 
is by no means exclusive. Sovereignty does not necessarily imply all power, or that 
there can not coexist with it within its own dominions other independent and 
coequal rights. Indeed, the exception taken furnishes a strong argument in favor 
of the principle contended for, because the same rule of justice that gives for certain 
purposes jurisdiction over the waters, as incident to the use of the land, extends, for 
like reasons, a right over the land for temporary use and shelter, as incident to the 
use of the ocean. The rule operates with equal validity and justice both ways, and 
its application in the one case sustains and justifies it in the other. If neither right 
must give way there seems to be no good reason why the older and better right of 
the nations to the free navigation of the ocean, with its incidents, should be sur- 
rendered to the exclusive claims of any single nation." (lb., 214, 215.) 

When a vessel, engaged in a lawful voyage by the law of nations, is compelled, by 
stress of weather or other inevitable cause, to enter the harbor of a friendly nation 
for temporary shelter, the enjoyment of such shelter being incident to the right to 

* Hall, International Law, p. 168, note. See reply to Hall's criticism in Albany 
Law Journal, November 1, 1890, pp. 346-350. 



GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 287 

navigate the ocean, carries -with it, over the vessel and personal relations of those 
on board, the rights of the oceau, so far as to extend over it, for the time being, the 
protection of the laws of its country. (Opinion of Umpire Bates in re brig Enter- 
prize; Report of British and American Commission, under Convention of February 8, 
1853, p. 187.) 

Tbe principles of law, stated in the diplomatic correspondence of the American 
Secretary of State, were judicially recognized by the supreme court of Louisiana 
in the caso of McCargo v. New Orleans Insurance Company (10 Rob. La., 202, 316). 

In 1815 Mr. Wheaton, in an article upon this subject in the Revue Francaise et 
Etrangere, lx, 345 (Dana's Wheaton, sec. 103, note), sustained the position of Mr. 
Webster as to the rule of international law in regard to immunity and exemption 
from local jurisdiction of distress vessels, cargo, and crews. 

The Attorney-General of the United States concurred in the view announced by 
the American Secretary of State. (The Creole, 40, p. 98.) 

In his speech on the case of the brigs Comet, Emporium, and Enterprize, March 3, 
1840, in the Senate, Mr. Calhoun had stated the principle in substantially the same 
terms. (3 Calhoun's Works by CraHo", 465.) 

But even if it could be questioned that the exemption from local jurisdiction of 
storm or distress-driven vessels, crew and passengers exists as a rule of the law of 
nations, it is clearly sanctioned by the treaty between Spain and the United States. 

THE TREATY OF 1795. 

Article VI provides for the protection of the vessels and other effects of citizens 
or subjects of one nation in the jurisdiction of the other. Article VII relieves from 
embargo or detention the vessels or effects of subjects or citizens and secures regu- 
lar and orderly judicial processes for the trial in case of the seizure of subjects or 
citizens for debts or crimes. Article VIII is little more than declaratory of the law 
of nations in this regard, but it consecrates the guarantee of immunity from appre- 
hension or detention by proclaiming it solemnly as a part of the law for the observ- 
ance of the two parties. 

Counsel for complainants does not dwell upon the guarantees contained in the 
protocol of January 12, 1877, because in our view of the case the complainants were 
at no time answerable to either the military or civil jurisdiction of Spain. They 
were not "residing in Spain, her adjacent islands, or her ultramarine possessions," 
but were cast upon her territorial waters by accident and distress. But had they 
been actually resident in Cuba their treatment would still have been unusuai, 
unwarranted, and harsh. 

The circumstance that it was on a small fishing smack that the complainants 
entered the port of refuge, in no way affects the character or extent of the protec- 
tion to which they were entitled under the law of nations and the treaty stipu- 
lations. They would have been equally entitled to exemption from arbitrary arrest 
and cruel treatment had they been carried in on a floating spar or on the deck of a 
clipper ship flying the American flag. (Wharton, Int. Dig., Vol. 3., sec. 410.) 
Article VIII of the treaty of 1795 between Spain and the United States was declara- 
tory of the law of nations, and is conformable to the comity and practice of modern 
civilized States. Just one year after the ratification of this treaty the assaults of 
Great Britain upon the rights of seamen on board American vessels resulted in the 
passage of the act of May 28, 1796 (1 Stat. L., p. 477), entitled "An act for the relief 
and protection of American seamen," the substantive provisions of which are carried 
into the Revised Statutes of the United States. (Sees. 4588 and 4589.) 

IV. 

Vessels owned by citizens of the United States may carry the flag of the United 
Spates on the high seas, and are entitled to the protection of the United States Gov- 
ernment, though from being foreign built or from other causes they are not and can 
not be registered as vessels of the United States. 

Ownership is the basis on which nationality rests; ownership is evidenced by bill 
of sale and guaranteed by the flag she carries; foreign nations will not look into the 
question of title nor examine how far municipal laws have been complied with, so as 
to enable the ship, for municipal purposes, to carry the flag; a certificate or pass- 
port from the sovereign of the flag, or a certificate from one of his consuls, that the 
vessel is owned by one of his citizeus or subjects, will be a sufficient assurance that 
the rlag, for international purposes, is rightfully carried. (Wharton Int. Law Dig., 
Vol. Ill, sec. 410.) 

IN CONCLUSION. 

The law of nations, treaty stipulations, and the laws of humanity seem equally and 
persistently disregarded by Spain when it is question of the personal freedom or 
property interests of American citizens. Within a few days past the counsel who 



288 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

signs this brief filed a protest on behalf of Mr. Libboy, a citizen of the United States, 
whose extensive properties in the Island of Cuba have been subject to persistent 
plunder and spoliation, and which have finally been abandoned by his manager, 
whose personal safety was repeatedly threatened. It seems to counsel that much 
more is involved in these cases than the mere pei'sonal interests— important and 
serious as they are — of individual sufferers. They involve consideration of the extent 
and measure of protection which American citizens may expect in Cuba under the 
guarantees of the law of nations and treaty stipulations; and they present the 
question whether the United States will continue to submit to the habitual violation 
by Spain of the law of nations, treaty stipulations, and the laws of humanity in 
respect of the persons and property of American citizens temporarily or accidentally 
within Spanish territory. 

So far as the record discloses there was neither ground for suspicion nor probable 
cause for the exceptionally harsh treatment of complainants. There was nothing in 
their movements or surroundings that was so unusual or extraordinary as to justify 
their original apprehension without warrant or judicial process, nor for their pro- 
tracted imprisonment. There appears no excuse for the wanton violation of their 
natural and treaty rights. On the contrary, all the real evidence was in their favor 
and corresponded with and corroborated a story that was consistent throughout. 
Adverse winds and currents, an empty and dismantled fishing smack, and a starving 
crew, seeking refuge in a port of a nation presumed to be civilized and friendly, 
presented strong evidence of the literal truth of their narrative. In the long train 
of events which succeeded their apprehension and cruel captivity there does not 
appear a single feature or element to warrant suspicion of hostile act or intent. 
Their physical condition negatived the possibility. The case needs no embellish- 
ment. A plain recital of the facts is sufficient to expose the circumstances of aggra- 
vation that attended their apprehension and imprisonment. And it is difficult to 
refrain from the use of language that may not sound diplomatic when contemplating 
the calm indifference to law, justice, and humanity manifested on the part of the 
Spanish authorities, even after the facts had been brought to their attention by the 
repeated remonstrances of the accredited representatives of the United States. 

What a pretense and travesty of justice the whole proceeding on the part of the 
Spanish authorities was clearly appears from the record furnished by themselves. 
The individual who forwards an official communication to Mr. Hyatt, United States 
consul at Santiago, and subscribes the same "God guard your honor many years, 
Sebastian Kindelau," is presumably the governor-general. And it seems from the 
language of this remarkable production that "the American citizens, August Bolton 
and Gustav Richelieu" were charged with "the crime of rebellion," and "that a 
greater part of the charges and discharges have to be proven in a foreign country, 
as is Hayti." It remains for a Spanish governor-general to explain how American 
citizens can be guilty of the crime of rebellion against Spain while in Haytien ter- 
ritory. There is a freshness and flavor about the communication of "his excellency, 
the president of the territorial audiencia," which will repay careful perusal, and it 
has been fortunately preserved in English, where it no doubt loses some of the suavity 
of expression that is found in the original. It may be consulted by the student of 
international jurisprudence in search of a specimen of Spanish diplomatico-judicial 
utterance. The cuttle-fish has heretofore borne a reputation for his facility in mud- 
dying the waters, however lucid, in which he moves ; but for clouding and confusing 
a plain case the Spanish fiscal, governor-general, or president of a territorial 
audiencia has no competitor. (Ex. Doc, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, No. 224, 
p. 123.) 

One of the excuses for holding complainants after their release had been formally 
and repeatedly demanded by the United States is set out in the communication just 
referred to, wherein it is attempted to justify further delay on the ground " that the 
state of the sumario (preliminary proceedings) in which is found the cause followed 
for the crime of rebellion against Bolten and Richelieu holds him from disclosing to 
the honorable consul the charges that exist in the proceedings against Bolten and 
Richelieu, as always, according to our law, the sumario (preliminary proceedings) 
are completely secret, but it can be said for the satisfaction of such a worthy repre- 
sentative that there exists sufficient reason to indict and decree the provisional 
imprisonment of said individuals. This court has seen itself in the necessity of 
prolonging the imprisonment decreed by the marine jurisdiction." 

The communication in which this curious excerpt occurs was dated April 10, 1895, 
forty-four days after the arrest, and is significant in the admission, which was no 
doubt inadvertent, that the civil court was executing a punishment inflicted by "the 
marine jurisdiction," which the superior authorities had reluctantly conceded had 
no jurisdiction. But the truth is, as is apparent from the whole record, that this 
was another subterfuge and evasion couched in diplomatic phraseology equally desti- 
tute of honesty and veracity. The temptation to invoke "sumario" and "incommu- 
nicado," much as nurses utilize the "bogie" to frighten children from entering 
prohibited Dlaoes, may not be resisted by the average Spanish official when every 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 289 

other expedient has failed. The hollowness of this pretense is apparent. Against 
the sufficiency and integrity of this reply the Secretary of State and the United 
States consul promptly protested. (Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first ses- 
sion, pp. 123, 124.) Forty-four days is a longtime to consume in ascertaining the 
patent fact that complainants were within the conditions of Article VIII of the 
treaty. 

An illustration may here serve a useful purpose. Suppose — if such a case is imag- 
inable in this year of grace 1896 — that two Spanish seamen under corresponding 
circumstauces should seek refuge in the harbor of New York, and immediately upon 
landing should be arrested by the authorities when on their way to the office of the 
Spanish consul, and should, without arraignment, without formal charges or judi- 
cial process, be incarcerated in a loathsome prison; and suppose the representatives 
of Spain, after proper examination, should satisfy themselves that they were within 
the conditions of Article VIII, and should demand formal charges, prompt trial, or 
their release. How long would it be before their freedom would be assured ? Would 
it be an answer which would satisfy any self-respecting State that the grand jury 
was not in session or that the accused must be held and subjected to harsh treatment 
for two or three months, or until the authorities could communicate, as to the regu- 
larity of the vessel's clearance, with the Government of Mexico, from one of whose 
ports the dismantled vessel had sailed? 

If it lie admitted that shipwrecked seamen cast upon the territorial waters of the 
United States, and apprehended and thrown into prison, would be restored to their 
freedom within twelve or twenty-four hours, either by Executive order or by the 
issue of the writ of habeas corpus, and it be added in extenuation of Spanish pro- 
crastination that this is practicable by reason of existing municipal law or statute 
in the United States, but that Spanish procedure furnishes no correspondent or 
equivalent summary processes, the reply is that it is no answer to a demand founded 
on international law or treaty stipulation that the municipal law furnishes no 
procedure for the execution of discharge of such an international obligation. If the 
obligation exists under the law of nations or treaty stipulation, it is the duty of the 
nation to supply it. It was maintained in the American case before the Geneva 
Tribunal that the liability of Great Britain should be measured by the rules of 
international law, and that it could not be escaped by reason of any alleged 
deficiencies in any internal legislation. The award says the Government of Her 
Britannic Majesty can not justify itself for a failure of due diligence on the insuf- 
ficiencies of the legal means of action which it possessed. 

If a more stringent law is wanted to enable a nation to fulfill its international 
duties, then it is its duty to have a more stringent law. (Wharton's Int. Law Digest, 
Vol. Ill, p. 645.) But the truth is, there exists in Cuba process and procedure com- 
petent to deal in a summary way where the ends of justice and international law or 
treaty stipulations require action, and the decision of the examining judge of the 
5th of May, 1895, which operated to release complainants, could have been and should 
have been reached in February had good faith characterized the action of the author- 
ities in respect of the discharge of international obligations. (Ex. Doc. No. 224, first 
session Fifty-fourth Congress, p. 131.) And the same result could and should have 
been accomplished at an early day by Executive order. In this case no judicial pro- 
cedure recognizable by civilized communities was followed; punishment was substi- 
tuted for charge, arraignment, and j udicial process. The whole proceeding was shock- 
ing to the sense of justice and humanity. Whatever may have been the real motive, 
nothing appears to excuse the action of the authorities toward the complainants. 

The falsity of each successive and shifting charge brought against complainants 
has been promptly exposed, and no extenuating circumstances appear to palliate the 
cruel treatment to which complainants were subjected. 

The acts of the administrative authorities at Santiago imperatively call for dis- 
avowal by Spain of the indignity to the flag and the payment of a substantial 
pecuniary indemnity to the United States on account of the arbitrary arrest and long 
and cruel imprisonment of complainants. 

Early in the history of the nation the American doctrine found emphatic expression 
in the declaration that "the colors that float from the masthead should be the cre- 
dentials of our seaman;" and its observance has been fearlessly enforced, even to the 
extreme of war. 

It seems to counsel that this is a case which demands summary redress and repara- 
tion, and complainant claims damages from Spain in the sum $10,000. 

It is respectfully submitted that, for the purposes of arrest and imprisonment, the 
complainants were not subject to the jurisdiction of the administrative authorities 
of Spain, but were, at the time of arrest and seizure of their boat, for purposes of 
protection, within the exclusive protection of the law of nations and the treaty 
stipulations; and their arrest and imprisonment was arbitrary and unwarranted. 

(Treaty of 1795, Articles VIII and XIX; Consular Regulations, pars. 170, 171, 172, 
175, 177; Commission between U. S. and Great Britain, Feb. 8, Report, pages 241-245; 
Wheaton, 153 ; Dana'B Wheaton, 103, note.) 

19 



290 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

As a result of the cruel treatment of the authorities at Santiago, one of the com- 
plainants barely survived the imprisonment and the other is crippled with infirmity 
and disease that will probably carry him to an early grave. 

As both the administrative, military, and civil authorities Of Spain at Santiago 
de Cuba must be held to a knowledge of the law of nations and the treaty stipula- 
tions in this regard, the gravamen of the offense consists in the willful and perverse 
violation by Spain of her obligations in respect of the rights and immunities 
guaranteed to these complainants. 

The euphuistic palaver and the circumambient correspondence of the Spanish 
authorities thinly veils a deliberate purpose to advisedly disregard these obliga- 
tions. They may not plead ignorance, for the United States consul immediately 
protested and continued to protest against the action of the authorities as unwar- 
ranted And arbitrary. (Ex. Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, pp. 
111-117.) 

A nation which persistently insists not only upon the vigorous observance, but 
upon a latitudinarian extension, of neutral obligations on the part of the United 
States, ought to be required to faithfully fulfill the duties she has assumed under 
treaty stipulations in respect of American citizens. 

It is submitted that the following propositions have been established: 

First. That the complainant Richelieu is entitled to invoke the aid of the United 
States in enforcing against Spain his demand for pecuniary indemnity on account 
of arbitrary arrest and false imprisonment. 

Second. That the complainants Bolten and Richelieu were never, from the time of 
their first apprehension to the last minute of their incarceration, amenable to the 
jurisdiction of Spain for the purposes of arrest, imprisonment, or punishment. 

Third. That the apprehension, rearrest, and imprisonment of the complainants 
and the seizure and appropriation of their fishing smack and outfit by the Spanish 
administrative authorities at Santiago de Cuba was in violation of the law of nations, 
the comity and practice of modern civilized States, and the provisions of Articles 
VI, VII, and VIII of the treaty of 1795. 

Fourth. That there was neither justification nor probable cause for the arrest or 
imprisonment of complainants. 

Fifth. That the innocence of complainants of the suggested offenses was indicated 
by the patent facts. 

Sixth. That the acts of the Spanish administrative authorities at Santiago de Cuba 
clearly indicate bad faith and duplicity toward complainants and the representatives 
of the United States. 

Seventh. That the circumstances of aggravation which characterized the acts of 
the Spanish administrative authorities present no extenuating feature, and that they 
call for an apology from Spain to the United States and a liberal pecuniary indemnity 
to complainants. 

Respectfully submitted. 

Alexander Porter Morse, 

Of Counsel. 
John W. Douglass, 
Alexander Porter Morse, 

Attorneys for Complainant. 

Washington, August 18, 1896. 

Mr. Adee to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 

Washington, August 21, 1896. 
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 18th 
instant, inclosing a brief and additional affidavit of Gustave Richelieu 
in support of his claim against the Government of Spain. 
I am, etc., 

Alvey A. Adee, Acting Secretary. 



Mr. EocMill to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 

Washington, August 31, 1896. 
Sir : Eeferring to my letter of the 21st instant, in acknowledgment 
of your brief filed in behalf of Gustave Richelieu against the Govern- 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 



291 



ment of Spain, I have to inform you that the memorial of said Riche- 
lieu has been sent to our minister at Madrid, with instructions to present 
the claim for the consideration of the Spanish Government, along- with 
the claim of August Bolteu, who was Richelieu's companion in the mal- 
treatment for which indemnity is sought. 

I am, etc., W. W. Rockhill, 

Acting Secretary. 



Mr. Roclchill to Mr. Taylor. 

No. 556.] Department of State, 

Washington, August 31, 1896. 
Sir: In the Department's No. 483 of March 18, 1896, you were 
instructed to present the claim of August Bolteu against the Govern- 
ment of Spain for indemnity. Mr. Bolten and his companion, Riche- 
lieu, were cast upon the shores of Cuba by stress of weather in a small 
fishing smack. Instead of receiving the hospitality of the Cuban 
authorities to which they were entitled under our treaty of 1795 with 
Spain, they were imprisoned and detained, as related in instruction 
No. 183, under the pretense that they were connected with the Cuban 
insurrection. All that was said in relation to Bolten's claim applies 
equally to Richelieu's. The two men were cast together upon the 
Cuban shore, they suffered the same treatment at the hands of the 
Spanish authorities, and were released at the same time. Their cases 
are precisely similar. That of Richelieu was not presented when Bol- 
ten's was, because his right to the protection of the United States was 
not at that time fully established. That defect in his case has been 
cured, and you are directed to demand the consideration of his claim 
by the Spanish Government along with the claim of Bolten, and to 
solicit an early settlement of both. 

I am, etc., W. W. Rockhill, 

Acting Secretary. 



Mr. Gordon to Mr. Olney. 

280 Broadway, New York, September 12, 1896. 

Mv Dear Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 
March 18, 1896, wherein you kindly inform me that the claim of August 
Bolten against the Spanish Government for indemnity for false impris- 
onment in Cuba would be forwarded to the United States minister at 
Madrid for presentation to that Government. 

I have heard nothing since from your Department as to the progress 
and outcome, if any, in this matter, and I write now to inquire for 
such information as you may be in a position to give herein. I shall 
thank you exceedingly for the same. 

Yours, very respectfully, David Gordon. 



Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Gordon. 

Department of State, 

Washington, September 15, 1896. 
Sir : In reply to your letter of the 12th instant, I have to say that in 
a recent instruction to our minister at Madrid, in regard to the case of 



292 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

Gustave Eichelieu, he was again directed to ask an early settlement 
of the claim of August Bolten. 

I am, etc.. W. W. Eockhill, 

Acting Secretary. 



Mr. Rocltliill to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 

Washington, September 29, 1896. 
Sir. : Referring to previous correspondence, I have to state that I am 
advised by our minister to Spain that be has presented the claim of 
Gustave Richelieu to the Spanish Government. 
I am, etc., 

W. W. ROCKHILL, 

Acting Secretary. 



Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

No. 594.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, November 4, 1896. 
Sir : Replying to your numbers 483 of March 18 and 556 of August 
31 last, I have the honor to transmit to you herewith the reply of the 
minister of state refusing to consider the claim of Mr. August Bolten, 
and likewise of Mr. Gustave Richelieu, on the grounds set forth in the 
evidence accompanying this note, with translation. 
I am, etc., 

Hannis Taylor. 



[Inclosnre.— Translation.] 

Ministry of State, 
San Sebastian, September 29, 1896. 
Excellency : 

My Dear Sir: I had the honor in due course of time to state to your excellency in 
the note dated April 8, of the current year, that I asked my colleague, the minister 
for the colonies, data concerning the American citizen, Mr. August Bolten, referred 
to in your excellency's courteous note, dated the 1st of the same month. The Cuban 
authorities having been consulted, I have just received a certified copy of the u expe- 
diente" instituted against the above-mentioned North American citizen and his com- 
panion, Richelieu, in consequence of their presenting themselves in the port of San- 
tiago de Cuba, manning a boat without clearance papers or any document proving 
the nationality of the vessel and the object of the voyage. The length of said, 
"expediente" deprives me of the pleasure of sending to your excellency a literal 
copy of the same, which, however, I place at your disposal in case you should desire 
to read it, confining myself to communicate to you the inclosed 11 copies, which, in 
my opinion, are sufficient to give a just idea of the same. 

Your excellency may be convinced by said copies that there was a reasonable 
ground to arrest and institute proceedings against the two American citizens, Bolten 
and Richelieu, and also that the action of the court was the shortest and most expe- 
ditious permitted by the laws of procedure, which both Spaniards and foreigners are 
equally submitted to. 

The depositions of Felix Tahureaux, accusing the North American prisoners of hav- 
ing shipped from Haiti insurgents and ammunitions; the numerous contradictions 
indulged in by Bolten and Richelieu, which are evidenced in their having been made 
to give evidence face to face, to which they were submitted on May 5, 1895, there 
having both agreed, as shown in the confrontation, to falsify and exaggerate the 
facts; the strange plans of both, which have not, indeed, been fully justified, and 
the most important circumstance that their anomalous voyage coincided with the 
first filibuster expeditions and insurrectional uprising, fully justify the suspicions 



GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 293 

•which they inspired from the beginning and the proceedings instituted by the 
marine jurisdiction. 

As soon as the North American nationality of the prisoners could be verified, the 
marine jurisdiction, in conformity with the international compacts, and most spe- 
cially with the procotol of January 12, 1877, did uot go on with the case, which came 
under the cognizance of the ordinary courts. 

The report of the marine attorney of Santiago de Cuba, the written opinion of the 
auditor of the Apostadero of Habana, and the resolution of the commander-general of 
the Apostadero and of the squadron of the Antilles show how strictly the international 
compacts in force between both countries are carried out in the island of Cuba. 

When the suit came under the action of the ordinary jurisdiction the proceedings 
were diligently pursued, and as the assertions of the consul of the United States at 
Santiago de Cuba were favorable to the prisoners, as were likewise later on those of 
a Protestant clergyman established in Haiti and those of a Spaniard who had resided 
for some time in Puerto Principe, the charges proffered by the deponent Thaureaux 
not having been proved, the instructing judge issued an order setting the prisoners 
free, and later on the superior court, owing to a lack of evidence, issued an order 
provisionally suspending the suit. 

On February 23, 1895, they were arrested ; on the following April they were set 
free ; on June 22 the suspension was ordered, so that they had been arrested only during 
two months, and within four months all the procedure was ended, notwithstanding 
the fact that letters rogatory had to be issued, the difficulty of communications and 
the condition of rebellion of the country having to be contended with. 

Anyone who will impartially examine the case will acknowledge, as I hope the 
friendly Government of the United States shall have to acknowledge, that on the 
part of the Spanish authorities there was no abuse of power whatever, and that 
the case, in view of the circumstances in which the country was involved, gave rise 
to the suspicion which the authorities had and forced them to proceed in the form 
and manner in which they acted. 

It is true that Bolten, during his imprisonment, was ill; but it is also true that he 
was transferred to the hospital and attended to as required by his condition. 

It is to be remarked that Bolten claims the considerable sum of $10,000, a quantity 
which, even if the imprisonment had not been justified, would have been considered 
absurd, as it is exorbitant. 

In view of the above statements, which your excellency and the Government of the 
United States will appreciate in their high sense of justice, His Majesty's Govern- 
ment finds itself obliged to reject in an absolute manner the demand for an 
indemnity, considering this case finally and irrevocably ended. 

With this motive, and reiterating to the Government and people of the United 
States the assurances of friendship in which the Spanish Government and people 
have always been inspired, it is very gratifying to me, Mr. Minister, to renew to 
your excellency the assurances of my most distinguished consideration. 

The Duke of Tetuan. 

The Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States. 



[Inclosure.] 
Deposition of Felix Thaureaux. 

At Santiago de Cuba, in the justice hall of the prison of this city, on March 3, 1895, 
appeared the individual mentioned in the margin, who, being sworn according to the 
ordinance, promised to tell the truth on every question put to him, and the general 
questions having been put to him, said: That his name was as already stated; that 
he was 49 years old, a native of Guantanamo, a country laborer t and i« undergoing 
a four-months' sentence as receiver of stolen goods. 

Asked whether he knows the American citizens, Gustave Richelieu and August 
Bolten, and, in the affirmative case, state all he knows with regard to them, said: 
That he knows both of them; that he has spoken little with the latter, because 
he knows very little the English language, but that he makes himself perfectly 
understood by the former, who speaks French; that, according to what he said to 
him, they left Puerto Principe (Haiti) at the beginning of February; that in a place 
of the coast between Santo Domingo and Haiti they took on board two men, one 
white and the other colored; that the former said his name was Marcial Figueredo 
or Figuerola; that they shipped with them three boxes of regular dimensions, one of 
them containing revolvers, another machetes, and he does not know what the other 
contained. 

That they sailed for the Cuban coast, landing the men and the boxes at the mouth 



294 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

o€ a river situated between Guantanamo and Punta Maisi, Dear some wharves which, 
are situated in the coast ; that they brought a small map of those coasts, by means 
of which they expected to find out their landing place; that when they left Guan- 
tanamo, and near the mouth of the first river to be found going to Cuba, they saw 
on the coast certain caves in which he assured him there were arms and ammunitions 
of war, and that if he was well paid he would run the risk to bring them; that he 
saw there two armed individuals whom he supposed were rebels; that they left 
Puerto Principe in understanding with the Protestant clergyman, and for this reason 
they say they ask him for references of their good behavior; that the clergyman's 
name is John ; that it was also spoken of telegraph operators with whom they dined 
and drank in a place on the coast; that higher up the Cape Haitiano they took on 
board the two men and the ammunitions ; that Richelieu was staying in an hotel of 
Puerto Principe in which the Cuban insurgents had meetings, among them Maceo, 
Marcano, and Mancebo; that Maceo made frequent trips to Santo Domingo and 
Jamaica; that he saw Richelieu destroy newspaper clippings which contained por- 
traits of prominent insurgents, and that amongst them he took one which contained 
that of Marti, which clippings the guard Jose Baro delivered to him. 

That when the two individuals came on board with the three boxes they also carried 
with them a package with papers which seemed dangerous for them to keep, because 
a big piece of iron was tied to it in order to throw it deep into the water in case of 
emergency; that they intended to return to Haiti to bring more people, but that 
owing to the bad condition of the boat they did not dare to undertake the journey, 
and decided to come to Cuba in order to go from here in a steamer; that they have 
not yet given him money for the commission, which money they would deliver to 
him on coming back to Haiti; that he has nothing else to say. After this deposi- 
tion was read to him, on being asked if he had anything further to say or an y thing 
to correct, he said no, and affirms and ratified his statement, signing with the 
attorney and present secretary, to which I certify. 

Felix Thaukeatjx. 
gonzalo ce la puerta. 

Sworn before me. 

Manuel Brioso. 

A true copy. 



Confrontation of August Bolten and Gustave Richelieu as witnesses, 

In the hall of justice of the prison of this city on May 5, 1895, appeared the indi- 
viduals mentioned in the margin, who on being duly asked, as set forth iu their 
depositions, replied as in the following: 

August Bolten on being asked, after his deposition contained on the tenth sheet 
and supplemented on the overleaf of sheet 22, whether he has anything further to 
say or rectify and whether he confirms and ratifies his deposition, said that he con- 
firms and ratifies the statements made. 

On being asked whether he knows Gustave Richelieu; whether he knows that he 
(Gustave Richelieu) bears him any hatred or ill will, or whether he considers him 
suspicious, says that he knows him ; that he believes Gustave Richelieu bears him no 
hatred or ill will, and that he does not consider him as suspicious. 

On being asked how it is that he states in his deposition that the only implements 
they carried were nets and seines, whereas Richelieu refers in his deposition to two 
fishing nets 30 fathoms long, said that he never saw such seines on board, and that 
they only had the implements mentioned in his deposition. 

On Gustave Richelieu's being asked, after having read to him his deposition on 
the 19th leaf, and amplification of leaves 19 and 54, whether he has anything further 
to say or rectify, and whether he confirms and ratifies his statement, said that he 
has nothing further to say nor to rectify, and that he confirms and ratifies his 
statements. 

On being asked whether he knows August Bolten and is aware that he (August 
Bolten) bears him any ill will, and whether he considers him suspicious, said that 
he knows him, and that he does not believe that August Bolten bears him any ill 
will, nor does he consider him as suspicious. 

Asked how it is that he says in his deposition of the overleaf of leaf 15 that 
besides the fishing nets they carried two seines about 30 fathoms long, whereas 
Bolten assures that they only carried a small seine, he said that he saw them in the 
boat the day before leaving Puerto Principe, and he does not know whether Bolten 
had given them back because he had not paid for them. 

Asked how he states this about Bolten, whereas he declares that said nets, which 
were the most important fishing implements carried by them, were lost by them by 
leaving them outside of the boat while fishing, said that he has made this deposi- 
tion because he was told so by Bolten, without being able to say whether it was a 
truth, because it was nighttime when they lost them, he could not see them. 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 295 

Asked how lie says that the planks which were given to them at Puerto Principe to 
be placed in thelloor of the boat were used by him in the iisbing tackle, said it is 
true that he has deposed this and that he procured the planks for that purpose before 
leaving that port. 

Asked how it is that he declares in the overleaf of sheet 15 that the hooks and 
lines were all well rolled up in the floor of the boat and wore covered by his com- 
panion's waterproof coat, he said that as they were covered by the waterproof he 
could not see what was under it, nor could he be sure whether they were there, judg- 
ing only by the size of the parcel. 

Asked whether he neither saw them on some of the occasions when he slept on the 
Boor of the boat, nor wheu Bolten threw them into the water in order to fish, said that 
he did not see them on any occasion. 

On August Bolten being asked whether he has anything to say against all the state- 
ment made by Richelieu, said that all the statements made by Richelieu in regard to 
the nets were not true, but that it had been arranged by them when they wanted to 
come to the island to excite pity for themselves. 

On Richelieu being asked to state the truth about the statement just made by 
Bolten, he (Richelieu) said that it is true they had so arranged. 

On Richelieu being asked how he said in his deposition on the overleaf of the 15th 
sheet that he placed the implements in the bottom of the boat, covered with the 
waterproof of his companion, while the latter said in his deposition on sheet V2 that 
he kept the implements in a box, said that Bolten has told him so many lies that he 
does not now know what is the truth. 

On Bolten being asked whether he had to say anything against Richelieu's state- 
ment, replied that if Richelieu would only tell the truth, setting aside the lies which 
they had agreed to tell, the depositions would better agree. 

Being asked what was their purpose in stating what was not true, said that it 
was in order to move the pity of the people whom they would meet, but that the 
very moment they were arrested he recommended him to tell only the truth. 

Upon Richelieu being asked whether the statement Bolten had just made is true, 
the latter said that the first part is true, but that he did not recollect having been 
recommended to tell the truth. 

Upon Bolten being asked why they thought it necessary to invent losses which they 
had not sustained in order to appeal to compassion, if they did not consider sufficient 
their condition of shipwreck and nineteen days' voyage, said that it was Richelieu's 
invention, which he agreed to tell because he found nothing out of the way in it; 
that Richelieu also proposed to him to say that a ship had met them which had 
given them something to eat, but that he (Bolten) objected to so much invention. 

Upon Richelieu's being asked whether there is any truth in Bolten's statement, he 
(Richelieu) said that he did not remember. 

At this state of the proceedings the attorney ordered the suspension of the con- 
frontation and ruled that the deponents had agreed upon the nonexistence of the 
nets. 

Signed by the attorney, interpreter, and me, the secretary. 

August Bolten. 

Gonzalez de la Puente. 

Gustave Richelieu. 

I. Agostino, Interpreter. 
Before me. 

Manuel Brioso. 
A true copy. 



Eeport of the marine attorney. 

On the 23d day of February last a boat reached this port in a rather bad condi- 
tion, 4£ meters long, and provided with sails, manned by two men, who turned out 
to be Swedish, one of them, and French the other, but both citizens of the United 
States. Theboat hasneithernamenordocuments, andher crew, Bolten andRichelieu, 
only carry the following documents: The former a passport issued on February 4 by the 
consul-general of the United States of America at Puerto Principe (Haiti) to enable 
Bolten to go to Cape Haitien to attend to his private business, and the latter a cer- 
tificate issued on the 7th of the same month by the consular agency of the same 
nation at San Marcos, showing that Richelieu landed in accordance with the law of 
November 29, 1893, from the American schooner Orlando. From their depositions, 
which are the only data upon which an opinion can be formed, they left with the 
boat without any clearance papers on February 4 to go to the Haitien Cape to fish 
tortoises and without any agreement, either written or even conventional, contain- 
ing the conditions under which each one weat. After touching at various ports of 



296 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

the coast, among them San Marcos, where Richelieu received his certificate, they 
reached the " Mole de San Nicolas " on the 12th. With westerly winds, they left on 
the 13th without being able on that day to round the cape, for which reason they 
cast anchor at sunset. 

On the following days they had easterly winds, which accounts for their not being 
able, in view of the boat's condition, to go to " Cabo Haitiano ; " but there is nothing 
to justify the voyage undertaken then by them to the Cuban coast, as, although 
Bolten says that he did not desire to return to Puerto Principe, they might have 
stayed at "La Mole" to wait for favorable winds, which would enable them to con- 
tinue to Cabo Haitiano, where they went, attracted by the abundance of tortoise on 
that coast and the facility of its being fished, according to their representation. 
They arrived at Caimanera on the 17th, and after seeing at Guantanamo the consular 
agent of the United States, they left on the 20th without clearance papers and 
verbally cleared, as reported by said agent. It seems natural that since they did 
not wish to return to Haiti and desired to look for work in this island, they should 
have tried to find it at Guantanamo. However, in spite of the bad condition of the 
boat, they preferred to come to this port and look for work here. Taking into 
account all the above statements and the special present condition of the island, 
particularly this region, and likewise that their arrival at Caimanera took place 
immediately before the uprising of the insurgent forces at Guantanamo. 

Resulting, that said individuals have no document whatever showing the place 
where the boat comes from. 

Resulting, that they left Caimanera without clearance papers, knowing that they 
ought not to do it. 

_ Considering the facts set forth in his deposition by Felipe Thaureaux from Eiche- 
lieu's confidences and also the different newspaper clippings with portraits of insur- 
gents carried by them, among which is that of Marti ; 

Considering the chart which Thaureaux said they had in their clothes and which 
was actually found on them; although a small one, it can give a knowledge of the 
distance from Cuba with respect to any place of the Haitien coast; 

Considering the contradictions which appear in their first depositions and the facts 
which, being untrue, they agreed to state, 

Everything tends to show in a suspicious light the American citizens Bolten and 
Richelieu. Taking into account the protocol signed at Madrid on January 12, 1877, 
the carrying out of which was ordered on April 8 of the same year, my opinion is, 
subject to your own superior judgment, that the present proceedings should come 
under the ordinary jurisdiction, or that they may be continued by the marine juris- 
diction owing to the present circumstances, or that the case may be abandoned, for 
which reasons, if you deem it advisable, I have naturally refrained from ordering 
them to be set free. 

Santiago de Cuba, March 9, 1896. 

GONZALO DE LA PUERTA. 

A true copy. 

Eeport of the auditor of the naval station of Havana, and decision of the commander- 
general relinquishing the case on behalf of the ordinary jurisdiction. 

Excellency : In view of the proceedings instituted in the court of admiralty of 
Santiago de Cuba on the occasion of the arrival at that port of a boat without clear - 
ancepapers, manned by two individuals named Gustave Richelieu and August Bolten, 
American citizens, as shown by the documents of folios 4, 5, and 6 of said proceed- 
ings, taking into account the provisions of protocol of January 12, 1877,, which was 
ordered to be carried out by Royal order dated 19th May, of the same year, it is my 
opinion, entirely in accord with the previous decision of the attorney of the naval 
station, in considering that no citizen of the United States accused of acts of sedition, 
disloyalty, or conspiration against the institutions, public safety, integrity of the 
territory, or against the supreme government, or of any other offense, may be sub- 
mitted to any exceptional tribunal, but exclusively to the ordinary jurisdiction 
except in the case when he is taken with arms in hand, which does not occur in the 
present case as it is inferred from the examination of these proceedings, that accord- 
ing to the law it seems right that your excellency should be pleased to provide for 
the reference of the case to the ordinary jurisdiction, leaving at its disposal the two 
individuals imprisoned in the prison of Santiago de Cuba; and these proceedings, 
the luggage, and boat referred to in said proceedings, to the court of instruction of 
the corresponding district of said capital, and making this decision known to the 
consul of the United States in the same city. 

Notwithstanding, your excellency will decide. 

Habana, May 20, 1895. 

J08E VALCARCEL. 



GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 297 

Habana, May 21, 1895. 
Agreeing entirely with the above advice, let it pass to the commander of marine 
to Santiago de Cuba in order that he may carry it out in all its parts all that is pro- 
posed therein. 

Alejandro Arias Salgado. 

A true copy. 

Communication of the commander of marine of Santiago de Cuba to the judge of 'instruc- 
tion, delivering him the papers relating to the case. 

Court of Admiralty and Office of the Captain of the Port, 

Attorney's Office. 

In view of the decree of the general commander of the naval station approved by 
the auditor, providing that the ordinary jurisdiction shall take cognizance of the 
case and ordering that the two individuals imprisoned in the prison of this city men- 
tioned in the second sheet, and also the delivery of these proceedings, of the luggage 
and boat referred to in the judicial proceedings to the ; udge of instruction of the 
corresponding district, I have the honor to inclose herewith the papers above 
referred to, and also to inform you that the luggage was handed to said prisoners as 
shown in sheets 75 and 76, and that the boat is in this court of admiralty at your 
disposal. I hope that you will bo pleased to acknowledge receipt of said papers to 
this attorney's office. 

May God preserve vou many years. 

Cuba, March 28, 1895. 

Gonzalo de la Puerta. 

The Judge of Instruction of the South District of this .City. 



Decree of the ordinary judge on taking charge of the case. 

Cuba, March SI, 1895. 
The receipt of this case is acknowledged. Let it be delivered to the clerk of the 
court, Isidro de Tapia, he being one of the clerks who has less cases in course of 
process. Let the usual reports of its initiation be given. 

And pending the decision with regard to further proceedings, let the examination 
of August Bolten and Gustave Richelieu be amplified, and for that purpose the court 
shall be transferred to the hospital and prison and the Government interpreter. 
Ordered and signed by the judge before me, to which I certify. 

Aristides Maragliano. 
Isidro de Tapia. 
A true copy. 

[Translation.] 

Communication of the United States consul at Santiago de Cuba to the judge of instruction. 

United States Consulate, 

Santiago de Cuba, April 1, 1895. 
His Excellency Don Aristides Maragliano, 

Judge of Instruction of the South District of Santiago de Cuba. 

Sir: I acknowledge receipt of your courteous communication of to-day's date, and 
in answer to the interrogatories therein contained I have to say the following: 

First. With the jailer's permission, this consulate has given now and then to the 
prisoners Bolten and Richelieu, American citizens, newspapers to read, generally the 
New York Herald, World, and Philadelphia Record, because they complained- at not 
being able to speak Spanish, and time seemed too long to them. 

As said papers were taken from piles of old numbers at random aud without look- 
ing at the dates nor the contents, I do not know whether the portrait referred to of 
Jose Marti was printed in some of them. Judging, however, by the publicity given 
to the present movement and by the tendency to the illustrations noted in the 
American press, it is very possible that the portrait of said individual may have been 
printed in one of the newspapers. 

(2) August Bolten, born in Sweden, was naturalized in the court of first instance 
of the city and county of New York, on March 6, 1893. The document of naturali- 
zation, together with letters which recommend Bolten's credit, which were given me 



298 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

a little after his imprisonment, I have in my keeping, and I shall have pleasure in 
placing them at your disposal for their examination. 

Gustave Richelieu, born iu France, was, I am informed, naturalized at Boston in 
1870 or 1871. The latter, at the moment of his arrest, had a landing certificate from 
the American pailehot Orlando, duly signed and sealed by Charles Miot, consular 
agent of the United States at St. Marc, Haiti, which document gives him all the 
rights of an American sailor. 

The document also certifies that Richelieu is an American citizen. 

The original document was seized by the attorney, commander of marine. I have, 
however, kept a copy of it. 

(3) The consulate identifies the prisoners by their documents, which at first sight 
is a strong proof unless there is a positive evidence to the contrary. Private intelli- 
gence also corroborates the question of identity. I assure you that I am gratified 
to know that the case of the prisoners, in accordance with the protocol of 1877, has 
been placed under the jurisdiction of the court so worthily presided over by you, 
and I am confident that the prisoners will be treated in accordance with law and 
justice. You will pardon me if I state that this consulate has been disposed to 
believe the men above referred to to be free from any intention to violate the law or 
public peace, and that it is inclined to the opinion that they come under section 8 of 
the solemn treaty between Spain and the United States relating to shipwrecked. 
As these men have been imprisoned for more than five weeks I shall be gratified if 
you will expedite their trial. 

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, 

Pulaski P. Hyatt. 

A true copy. 



Letter from the missionary, Mr. Westmase, to the consul of the United States at Santiago 

de Cuba. 

The American Consul, 

Santiago de Cuba. 

Sir: I have just received a letter from my friend, Captain Bolten, who is in prison 
because he is suspected to have stolen a boat and has arrived at the port of Santiago 
de Cuba without passport. 

I wish to state that I know the Captain well and I may verify the fact that the boat 
in which he made the voyage from Mole to Cuba was his exclusive property, as he 
bought her when he was in my house. 

I know him to be a good and honest man, and I trust that you will use your 
authority to obtain his liberty. 

Believe me, very truly, yours, Westmase S. Smith, 

Wesleyan Missionary. 

A true copy. 



Decree ordering the liberty. 



Cuba, April £5, 1895. 



Mr. Judge of Instruction of the South District of this City. 

Whereas by a decree dated the 1st instant proceedings were instituted against 
Messrs. August Bolten and Gustave Richelieu, and their imprisonment was decreed 
without bail. 

Whereas although the investigation which the Spanish consul may have made at 
Port au Prince has not been received, yet, owing to the deposition made by the 
Spanish citizen, Don Manuel Barnuevo, and the other data contained in the pro- 
cedure, there is no doubt that the motives which led to said imprisonment do not 
exist now, for which reason the provisions of article 528 of the law of criminal pro- 
cedure have to be carried out. Let the above-mentioned August Bolton and Gustave 
Richelieu be set free, causing them to constitute a bond for their presentation every 
eight days before the court of tribunal which has cognizance of the case, and let 
the proper order be issued to the jailer. 

Ordered by the judge and signed by him, which I certify to. 

Aristides Maragliano. 

tSIDRO DE TAPIA. 



0USTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 299 

Order for the conclusion of the proceedings. 

Santiago de Cuba, April 26, 1S95. 

Whereas this procedure was begun on February 23, on a charge of rebellion, against 
the American citizens Messrs. August Bolten and Gustave Richelieu, all the proceed- 
ings having been officially instituted; 

Whereas the fact has been duly investigated and also its circumstances and 
authors, the conclusion of the summary is to be lawfully declared in the opinion of 
the signer of this order; 

In view of articles 622 and 623 of the law of criminal procedure, the summary is 
delivered to be ended and let it pass to the superior court in the respectful form of 
style, after the prisoners have been summoned, and let the present order be com- 
municated to the illustrious attorney of His Majesty. 

A true copy. 



Suspension. 

Territorial Court, Santiago de Cuba, Secretaryship of the Island: 

In the criminal suit proceeding from that court instituted against August Bolten 
and Gustave Richelieu for the offense of rebellion and order for temporary suspen- 
sion of the same, has been issued by the court of justice on June 22 of the present 
year, returning the papers of the case to you. 

Which I communicate to you that you may take action upon them, duly acknowl- 
edging their receipt. 

God guard vou for many years. 

Cuba, July'30, 1895. 

A true copy. Dr. Ramon Martinez, Secretary. 



[Translation.] 

Ministry of State, 
San Sebastian, September 30, 1896. 
Excellency. 

My Dear Sir : After the note which I had the honor to send to you yesterday, rela- 
tive to the claim of Mr. August Bolten, was written and approved, and while the 
documents accompanying it were being copied, I received your No. 174, of the 15th 
instant, making a similar claim in behalf of Richelieu, the other individual involved 
in the same case. 

As the case is identical for Bolten and for Richelieu, since both were arrested on 
the same grounds, and since only one set of proceedings was instituted, I pray your 
exoellency to consider as repeated, in answer to your said note No. 174, all I stated 
to your excellency in mine of yesterday also referred to. 

I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to your excellency the assurances of 
my most distinguished consideration, 

The Duke of Tetuan. 

The Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

iSTo. 603.] Department of State, 

Washington, November 10, 1896. 
Sir : Keferring to the Department's No. 483 of March 18 and ISTo. 
55G of August 31 last, I have to say that the Department desires to 
know the status of the claims of Bolten and Eichelieu against the 
Government of Spain. 

I am, etc., BicSard Olney. 



300 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 

Washington, November 19, 1896. 
Sir: Beferring to your letter of August 18 last, I have to say that 
the Department is advised by our minister at Madrid that the Spanish 
Government rejects the claim of Gustave Eichelieu on the ground 
(1) that there was reasonable ground to arrest him and institute pro- 
ceedings against him, and (2) that the judicial proceedings which 
resulted in his release were the shortest and most expeditious per- 
mitted by the laws of procedure to which both Spaniards and foreigners 
are subject. 

I am, etc., Bichard Olney. 



Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

No. COS.] United States Legation, 

Madrid, November 21, 1896. 
Sir : I have the, honor to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 603, 
relative to the claims of Bolten and Eichelieu, and in reply thereto to 
refer you to my No. 594, of the 4th instant, with inclosures, in which 
your inquiry is answered. 

I am, etc., Hannis Taylor. 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney. 

Washington, D. 0., December 2, 1896. 

Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of communication from 
the Department dated November 19, 1890, advising "that the Spanish 
Government rejects the claim of Gustave Eichelieu on the ground (1) 
that there was reasonable ground to arrest him and institute proceed- 
ings against him, and (2) that the judicial proceedings which resulted 
in his release were the shortest and most expeditious permitted by the 
laws of procedure to which both Spaniards and foreigners are subject." 

The answer of Spain as above abbreviated makes it clear to my mind 
that Spain has purposely or ignorantly misstated or mistaken the ground 
upon which the claim of Eichelieu is rested. The claim rests upon a 
charge against Spain of the violation of stipulations of the treaty of 
1795 in respect to Eichelieu and Bolten, which are set out in terms in 
the brief filed by the undersigned. The law of nations is also relied 
upon to sustain the claim to a pecuniary indemnity. 

However, as the undersigned proposes to reply at length to the 
answer of Spain rejecting the claim, I request that a copy of the expe- 
diente or other papers which have been transmitted to the (?) may be 
forwarded to the undersigned for consideration and reference when com- 
paring such reply. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Alexander Porter Morse, 

Counsel for Richelieu. 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 301 

Mr. Bockhill to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 

Washington, December 3, 1896. 
Sir : In reply to your letter of the 28th ultimo to Mr. Faison, I inclose 
herewith a copy of a dispatch from the United States minister at 
Madrid. No. 594, of the 4th ultimo, with its accompaniments, in regard 
to the rejection of the Richelieu-Bolten claim for indemnity. 
I am, etc., 

W. W. ROCKHILL, 

Assistant Secretary. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 

Washington, December 4, 1896. 
Sir: In reply to your letter of the 2d instant, I have to say that on 
the 3d I promised to give you a copy of the dispatch from the United 
States minister at Madrid, showing the grounds for the rejection of the 
claim of Gustave Richelieu. 

The papers are now being copied and will be sent to you without 
unnecessary delay. 

I am, etc., Richard Olney. 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney. 

December 19, 1896. 

Sir: I have to acknowledge in due course the receipt of a communi- 
cation from the Department of State, dated December 3, 1896, trans- 
mitting copy of a dispatch from the United States minister at Madrid, 
No. 594, of the 4th ultimo, with its accompaniments in regard to the 
rejection of the Richelieu-Bolten claim for indemnity. 

Under date November 19, 1896, I had been informed by the Depart- 
ment that "the Spanish Government rejects the claim of Gustave 
Richelieu on the ground (1) that there was reasonable ground to arrest 
him and institute proceedings against him; and (2) that the judicial 
proceedings which resulted in his release were the shortest and most 
expeditious permitted by the laws of procedure to which both Span- 
iards and foreigners are subject." 

Acknowledging the receipt of the last-mentioned communication I 
advised the Department that I proposed to reply at length to the 
answer of Spain rejecting the claim, and requested that a copy of the 
expediente or other papers which had been transmitted to the Depart- 
ment by the United States minister at Madrid should be forwarded to 
the undersigned for consideration and reference when preparing such 
reply. 

I have just examined the portions of the expediente which were 
transmitted by the ministry of state, San Sebastian, September 29, 
1896, to the United States minister at Madrid, and by the latter for- 
warded to Washington, and I have reached the conclusion that these 
papers, which are supposed to justify the rejection of these claims by 
Spain, do not require any lengthy reply, for the reasons following: 

First. Because the objections to the entertainment by Spain of these 



302 GUST AVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

claims have been anticipated, and have been, it seems to the under- 
signed, fully met and answered by a brief filed by the undersigned in 
the Department on the 20th day of August, 1896. 

Second. Because the substantive matter contained in the expediente 
does not deny or contradict material allegations contained in the record 
and insisted upon by this Government in the diplomatic correspondence 
touching these claims. On the contrary, the official reports set out 
at length of the Spanish administrative authorities fully sustain the 
position taken on behalf of claimants. As to the first proposition, I 
am not informed whether or not the brief which I had the honor to 
transmit to the Department meets its approval; and there is nothing 
in the letter of transmittal of the United States minister at Madrid to 
indicate that he rested the claim on the ground taken in my brief. But 
if the Secretary of State will turn to page 11 of the brief he will 
observe that the claim against Spain was grounded from a violation by 
her administrative authorities in Cuba of plain and explicit guaranties 
of exemption from arrest and arbitrary interference by either Govern- 
ment in respect of the citizens or subjects of the other under circum- 
stances analogous to those which surrounded claimants. If I am cor- 
rect in my reading of the treaty provisions referred to, the claimants 
were not at the time of their first apprehension nor on occasion of their 
second arrest amenable to the jurisdiction of the authorities of Spain. 
And this was the view of the actual situation officially expressed by 
the United States consul at Santiago de Cuba as early as the 28th of 
March, 1895. (House Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, 
p. 116.) 

As to the second proposition, the attempt to justify the imprison- 
ment of Richelieu and Bolton, notwithstanding the evidence which 
was produced by the United States consul indicating the truth of their 
entire story, upon the deposition of a prisoner "undergoing a four 
months' sentence as receiver of stolen goods," which appears to have 
been the only ground for suspicion, was in keeping with the character 
of evidence upon which Spain has rested her defense in these cases. 
The depositions of the convict accused "the North American prisoners 
of having shipped from Haiti insurgents and ammunition;" and the 
communication of the ministry of state admits that the charges 
proffered by the deponent were not proved. That in the nature of things 
such a charge was without any basis whatever appears from the 
description of the boat contained in the report of the marine attorney. 
(See also House Doc. No. 224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, 
pp. 111-131.) 

The charge that these American citizens had entered Cuban ports in 
a small craft without regularly documented clearance papers, if true, 
did not constitute a crime punishable by arbitrary arrest and cruel 
imprisonment for sixty- two days; and the failure to produce the same, 
if not accounted for, was at most a civil offense, subjecting the boat to 
seizure or detention in default of the payment of fine on the part of the 
officers or owners. And the personal papers which they carried, estab- 
lishing their identity and recognizing them as citizens of the United 
States, entitled them to the protection of the guarantees contained in 
the treaty of 1795. But, as has been asserted in our brief, neither the 
port of departure or destination was Cuban, but Haitian ; and if the 
papers satisfied the authorities of the latter State, it was no concern of 
the Spanish officials. Storm driven and nearly shipwrecked, these 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 303 

unfortunate individuals were entitled to hospitality under the law of 
nations and the treaty provisions. 

The charge that while in Haiti these individuals were plotting the 
crime of rebellion against Spain finds no basis for indulgence in 
the record, which, on the contrary contains evidence which exposes the 
frivolous character of this accusation, which appears to have been an 
afterthought of the administrative authorities. 

In the absence of any criminating proof whatever, the circumstance 
that Richelieu and Bolten entered Cuban ports in open day at a time 
"immediately before the uprising of the insurgent forces at Guanta- 
iiamo," furnished no sufficient ground or excuse for the cruel treatment 
and long imprisonment to which they were subjected. There is noth- 
ing in the record, which has been made up almost in its entirety by 
Spain, that connects these individuals or their disastrous voyage with 
the insurgents in Cuba or elsewhere. On the contrary, all the evidence 
corroborates, as the administrative authorities reluctantly admit, the 
accuracy in all essential particulars of the story of the storm-tossed 
seamen. The character and dimensions of the boat negative the possi- 
bility of its use as a transport for munitions or men. It was, what it 
was claimed by the seamen to be, a fishing craft. And the fact of its 
purchase at Port au Prince and the good character of Bolten is testified 
to by the Wesley an missionary at that port. 

In conclusion, I invite attention to the circumstance that, as appears 
from the communication of the ministry of state, San Sebastian, Sep- 
tember 30, 1896, to the United States minister at Madrid, the conclusion 
to reject the claim of Bolten was reached after examination of the 
record in that case, and before the Richelieu record was considered. 
So far as the undersigned is informed, the former record was not sup- 
ported by brief on the part of counsel nor was the claim for pecuniary 
indemnity placed upon the grounds upon which the claim in the Riche- 
lieu case was rested. In the Richelieu case a printed brief containing 
30 pages was filed in the Department of State, which rested the claim 
for pecuniary indemnity upon the law of nations and provisions of the 
treaty of 1795. As this record was not examined or pressed upon 
Spain, it seems to me we are justified in asking the Government to 
again bring this claim to the attention of Spain for a determination of 
the issue fairly raised in the Richelieu record. I have, therefore, to 
ask consideration of the points suggested in this communication and 
to the printed argument on file in the Department, with a view to such 
action as to the honorable Secretary may seem just and proper under 
the circumstances. 

The claimant, Richelieu, is in a desperate condition physically and 
financially, the result in great measure, as alleged, of cruel treatment 
by Spanish authorities in Cuba; and an appeal is made to his Gov- 
ernment to secure for him and his associate in suffering, Bolten, some 
measure of pecuniary redress before the end comes. 

But apart from considerations of a merely personal nature, I can not 
but believe that a high state purpose may well influence the action of 
the Government in demanding reparation for violations of treaty stipu- 
lations by Spain under the circumstances disclosed by the record in 
these cases. 

I am, etc., Alexander Porter Morse, 

0/ Counsel. 



304 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN* 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

No. 634.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 5, 1897. 
Sir : Beferring to your No. 594 of November 4 last, iuclosing the reply 
made by the Spanish Government in the cases of Eichelieu and Bolten, 
1 now transmit copy of a recent letter from Mr. Alexander Porter 
Morse, counsel for Eichelieu, which, together with the printed brief 
sent along with the memorial in behalf of the claimant, he desires to 
be placed in the hands of the Spanish Government. 
I am, etc., 

Eichard Olney. 



Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

No. 637.] Department of State, 

Washington, January 6, 1897. 

Sir: Beferring to the Department's instruction to you of yesterday 
in regard to the case of Gustave Eichelieu, I have to say that as a 
part of Mr. Morse's printed brief relates to matters which were for the 
consideration of this Department alone, you may use the arguments 
contained in it, with the exception of the reference to the citizenship of 
Eichelieu, in making your reply to the last note of the Spanish 
Government on the subject. 

As the case of Bolten is based upon precisely the same facts and is 
upon the same footing in all essentials with that of Eichelieu, you will 
make your reply cover both cases. The two cases stand together, and 
the treatment of them should be joint. 

I am, etc., Eichard Olney. 



[Telegram.] 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

Department of State, 

Washington, January 6, 1897. 
American Minister, Madrid : 
Suspend action on No. 634. 



Mr. Coaldey to Mr. Olney. 

Boston, January 27, 1897. 
Dear Sir: A gentleman, Pierre Gustave Laymet Eichelieu, who 
claims to be an American citizen, and that he was unjustly imprisoned 
in Cuba by the Spaniards, has requested me to write you, asking how 
his case before the Spanish court stands at present. He has shown me 
communications from his attorney at Washington, Mr. A. P. Morse, in 
which that gentleman informs him that his claim for indemnity from 
the Spanish Government because of his imprisonment has been marked 
" Special " by the State Department, and that it was to be pressed with 
all possible speed. 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 305 

It is some time now since he lias beard anything - , and he would like 
to hear from you just how his case stood, and when, if ever, there was 
a likelihood of its being settled. He is in very straitened circum- 
stances and suffering keenly from poverty. 

Hoping for an early reply, yours, very respectfully, 

John J. Coakley. 
(Care of Boston Traveler, Boston, Mass.) 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Olney. 

Washington, D. C, March 1, 1897. 

Sir: My attention has been called to the statement of the case of 
Gustave Richelieu in the list of American citizens, native and natural- 
ized, who were arrested and imprisoned in Cuba since February 24, 
1895, and which was transmitted to the Senate by the President on the 
25th of January, 1897, in response to Senate resolution of December 21, 
1896. 

This statement, as printed in Document No. 84, Fifty-fourth Congress, 
second session, page 3, understates the case, and is misleading in par 
ticnlars which it is desirable should be corrected as soon as an 'oppor- 
tunity to do so occurs. 

The fact is, that Richelieu and his companion, August Bolteu, also 
a citizen of the United States, were not u taken in a boat near 'San- 
tiago,'" as stated, but were arrested after they had landed, and when 
they were on their way to the United States consulate to report in accord- 
ance with their duty and treaty rights; and so far from being released 
"shortly after" were held in a loathsome prison with criminals and con- 
victs for sixty-two days, notwithstanding the most earnest and repeated 
demands for their release which were made by the United States con- 
sul, under instructions from the Department. 

As these cases have received the special consideration of the Depart- 
ment, and as the American minister at Madrid has been instructed to 
urge their settlement, it is important that no other than a correct state- 
ment should appear in a public document issued by the United States. 
It seems to the undersigned, further, that it should appear that neither 
Richelieu nor Bolten were natives of Spain, the former being native of 
France and the latter of Sweden. 

I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Alexander Porter Morse, 

Counsel for Richelieu. 



Senator Lodge to Mr. Sherman. 

Washington, D. C, March 8, 1897. 
Sir: I inclose herewith a letter which explains itself. I bespeak for 
this case your attention and consideration, and I trust it may be taken 
up and acted upon. 

Very respectfully, yours, H. C. Lodge. 



Boston, March 3, 1897. 
Dear Sir : I have been requested to write you by a man in Boston here who has a 
claim against the Spanish Government, and who would like to have you see what has 
been done or is likely to be done with it. 

ao 



306 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

His name is Gustave Richelieu; he is a Frenchman, but a naturalized American 
citizen. On January 23, 1895, he and a companion named August Bolten were taken 
prisoners at Santiago de Cuba by the Spaniards, on suspicion of being Cuban spies. 
After some time they were liherated, and returned to the United States. They each 
made a claim for $10,000 indemnity from Spain, and the State Department, after 
looking their claim up, instructed the American minister at Madrid to push the 
claims. Richelieu's attorney is Alexander P. Morse, 505 Pennsylvania avenue, 
Washington. 

Richelieu has not heard anything for some time concerning his claim, and he is 
anxious to know just where it stands. He is old and crippled, and lost his all when 
taken prisoner in Cuba. He has not a cent in the world, and subsists on what is 
given him. Under the circumstances, if you could do anything to hasten a settle 
ment of his claim you would be doing an act of great charity. 

Hoping to hear from you, 

Yours, very respectfully, John J. C oak ley, 

307 Washington street, Boston. 

(Care of Boston Traveler.) 

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. 



Mr. Taylor to Mr. Sherman. 

No. 660.] Legation of the United States, 

Madrid, March 9, 1897. 
Sir:. I have the honor to inclose, with translation, the last communi- 
cation of the Spanish Government touching the case of Bolten-Riche- 
lieu, and to await your further instructions, if any. 
I am, etc., 

Hannis Taylor. 



[Translation.] 

Ministry of State, Palace, March I, 1897. 
Excellency. 

My Dear Sir: As inclosnres to your note of the 29th of January last you sent to 
me an argument presented in support of the claim of the sailor Gustave Richelieu by 
his attorney, and a letter from tne same lawyer written after having read the answer 
which I had the honor to address to your excellency on the 29th of September last. 

Having examined both documents, I can not find in them any reason to modify the 
conclusions arrived at in that date. 

The whole argument of the lawyer, Mr. Morse, rests upon a supposed violation of 
Articles VI, VII, and VIII of the treaty of 1795 committed by our authorities in 
detaining two citizens of the United States for the simple fact of having landed in 
the coasts of Cuba. 

The briefest examination of the true facts discloses a grave mistake in that 
hypothesis. 

Richelieu and his companion, Bolten, were not detained for having lauded in Spanish 
territory, as I have already had occasion to demonstrate to your excellency. 

Their arrest took place when the island of Cuba was at the beginning of a formi- 
dable insurrection. In every point of the coast landed large and small expeditions — 
arrived from several ports and shores of the Mexican Gulf. Many of those who 
afterwards took a part in the rebellion as chiefs, rank soldiers, and scouts, came pre- 
cisely from Haiti, as is well known, using small crafts similar to that of the claim- 
ants. In no other manner did the well-known chief Antonio Maceo join the insurgent 
bands, and so great was the number of those who used this means of coming to and 
going from the island that I do not consider it venturesome to say that at a certain 
time there was a regular communication by means of small crafts and open boats 
between Cuba and the Antilles and the nearest keys. 

Under these circumstances, and when it was necessary to check such infiltration 
or entering of rebels by means of a close watch upon even the apparently most 
humble and harmless, the claimants arrived at the port of Guantanamo, without any 
documents whatever to prove their nationality or that of their vessel, and after- 
wards, without authorization, they went to Santiago de Cuba. 

What charge can be made against the proper marine authority for having detained 
them, not for tbe imaginary offense of having landed in Spanish territory, but as sus- 
picious persons — that is to say, only until it could be ascertained whether or not they 
were entitled to enjoy the benefits of the above-mentioned treaty? Indeed, who will 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN 307 

maintain that those benefits are absolutely unconditional, and that they extend even 
to those who hear hostile intentions for the integrity or for the sovereignty of Spain f 
Despile the perspicacity which may naturally be attributed to such an experienced 
lawj er, Mr. Morse has failed to make a distinction essential for the proper apprecia- 
tion of the present case, viz, that in practice the time of the application of a legal 
text may vary when there are sufficient reasons for it. In fact, the application of the 
treaty of 1795 • 1 i • 1 not suffer any alteration, hut only a justified delay, which was fol- 
lowed by the full and immediate application of the treaty as soon as it was possible to 
do so. 

After obtaining the proofs — which, by the way, were negative — of the innocence of 
the claimants, they w T ere placed in liberty, and your excellency is well aware, by my 
previous communications, of the very just causes which delayed the taking of this 
decision, such as the change of jurisdiction requested by a consul of your nation and 
the necessity of issuing letters rogatory in the interests of the claimants themselves; 
therefore no complaint should be based upon that inevitable delay. 

It is therefore evident that the agreen ent of 1795 was perfectly complied with in 
the case of Bolten-Richelieu, and that all the consequences w-hich it was pretended 
to draw from the basis of its violation, and with them the whole contents of Mr. 
Morse's argument, have lost their value. 

Only for the purpose of defining more clearly still the true significance and impor- 
tance of the detention imposed upon the claimants, I will rebate a secondary state- 
ment contained in said document. The attorney of Richelieu imagines to have dis- 
covered an irregularity in the administration of justice which, according to him, 
consists of the fact that the civil tribunal confirmed the penalty imposed by that of 
marine without considering that where there is no sentence there can be no con- 
firmation. One jurisdiction having inhibited the case in favor of the other, and the 
latter having maintained the detention of the two claimants, it is seen, without 
doubts of any kind, that that detention was only preventive and not penal, and this 
essential difference compels that Government of His Majesty to deny the right of the 
claimants to an indemnity. 

I will not answer here to the charges of cruelty made by Mr. Morse against our 
authorities, nor to the absurd supposition that Bolton and Richelieu had been accused 
of having rebelled against Spain while in Haiti. I have already rebutted and 
cleared those charges in my above-mentioned note. 

As regards the letter of Mr. Morse, your occupations and mine do not allow me to 
discuss in detail a writing which is limited to confirming in general terms the con- 
t^nts of the brief. The latter having been answered, the former is also answered, 
and I believe that your excellency will agree with me in this, although I do not fail 
to understand the motive of your having sent me a document in which the state- 
ments of the former are confirmed. 

It only remains for me to observe that the Government of His Majesty finds the 
conduct of its delegates as regards the case of Bolten-Richelieu to be above all 
censure and perfectly reasonable and correct, and that it must support and uphold 
them against the arguments of Mr. Morse with all decision, inasmuch as it has 
recently shown its purpose to rigorously exact from the Cuban authorities the 
fulfillment of the interior laws and of the international agreements. The deference 
which in all occasions the Government of his Majesty observes toward that of the 
United States has induced this Government, in spite of the decision previously com- 
municated to your excellency, to again take up the subject; but I deem it my duty 
to inform you that, despite our best wishes to please your Government, it will not be 
possible for us to discuss any further the present claim which, by the above, I con- 
sider to be definitely ended. 

I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to renew to your excellency the assur- 
ances of my highest consideration. 

The Duke of Tetuan. 



Mr. RocMill to Mr. Morse, 

Department of State, 
Washington, March 10, 1897. 
Sir: Your letter of the 1st instant, relating to the arrest and impris- 
onment in Cuba of Gustave Richelieu, has been received. 

Your suggestion regarding a correction of the statement that Eiche- 
lieu and Bolteu were captured in a boat near Santiago has been noted 
in the dispatch containing this report. 

Eespectfully, yours, W. W. Bockhill, 

A ssista n t Seer eta ry. 



308 GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 

Mr. Rockhill to Senator H. C. Lodge. 

Department of State, 

Washington, March 10, 1897. 
Sir : In reply to your letter of the 8th instant, in regard to the claim 
of Gustave Richelieu against the Government of Spain, I have the honor 
to say, by direction of the Secretary, that the claim has been presented 
to the Spanish Government. That Government denies its obligation to 
indemnify Mr. Richelieu. The Department has instructed our minister 
at Madrid to again present the claim with additional arguments. Mr. 
Alexander Porter Morse, Mr. Richelieu's attorney, is kept fully advised 
of the progress of the case. 

Respectfully, yours, W. W. Rockhill, 

Assistant Secretary. 



Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Goakley. 

Department of State, 
Washington, March 26, 1897. 
Sir: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 22d 
instant in regard to the claim of Gustave Richelieu against Spain. 

In reply I have to say that Mr. Richelieu's attorney, Mr. Alexander 
Porter Morse, of 1505 Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, D. 0., has 
been kept fully informed in regard to the case, and will no doubt keep 
his client advised. The claim has been urged with vigor and persist- 
ency, but Spain has not conceded the right to indemnity. 
Respectfully, yours, 

^V. W. Rockhill, 

Assistant Secretary. 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Sherman. 

Washington, D. C., April 10, 1897. 
Sir: I transmit an additional affidavit of complainant in the matter 
of the claim of Gustave Richelieu against Spain on account of arbitrary 
arrest and false imprisonment at Santiago de Cuba, setting forth the 
place and date of complainant's naturalization as a citizen of the United 
States, with the request that it be filed with and annexed to the papers 
in this case now on file in the Department. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Alexander Porter Morse, 

Of Counsel for Complainant. 



Know all men by these presents : 

That I, Gustave Richelieu, of Boston, county of Suffolk and Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, do hereby make oath, depose, and swear that on or about the 10th 
day of September, A. D. 1871, I took out my first papers declaring my intention of 
being a citizen of the United States, at Portland, Oreg., and that on or about the 
12th day of April, A. D. 1876, I took out my final papers which made me a citizen 
of the United States in Boston, State of Massachusetts, said final papers beiDg made 
out and recorded in the district court of tbe United States for the district of Mas- 
sachusetts. That for some reason unknown to me there is no record of my final 
naturalization. 

Witness my band and seal this 26th day of December, 1895. 

Gustave Richelieu* 



GUSTAVE RICHELIEU AND AUGUST BOLTEN. 309 

Commonwealth ok Massachusetts, Suffolk, ss: 

Boston, December 26, 1S95. 
There personally appeared the above-named Gustave Richelieu and made oath to 
the truth of the above subscribed by him. 
Before me, 

Cornelius P. Sullivan, 

Justice of the Peace. 

Superior court for the transaction of criminal business -within and for said county. 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Suffolk, ss: 

I, John P. Manning, of Boston, in said county, duly elected, qualified, and sworn 
as clerk of the said superior court, within and for said county and Commonwealth, 
said court being a court of record with a seal, which is hereto affixed, do hereby cer- 
tify that Cornelius P. Sullivan, by and before whom the foregoing acknowledgment 
or proof was taken, was. at the time of taking the same, a justice of the peace, 
authorized to act in said Commonwealth, and was duly authorized by thje laws of 
said Commonwealth to take and certify acknowledgments or proofs of deeds of land 
in said Commonwealth, and, further, that I am well acquainted with the hand- 
writing of said Cornelius P. Sullivan, and that I verily believe that the signature to 
said certificate of acknowledgment or proof is genuine. 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of said 
court this 27th day of December, 1895. 

[seal.] John P. Manning, 

Clerk of said Court. 



Mr. Morse to Mr. Sherman. 

Washington, D. 0., April 12, 1897. 
Sir: I transmit herewith certificate of Dr. P. W. Heffern, the attend- 
ing physician of the Boston Emergency Hospital, dated April 2, 1897, 
as to the condition and treatment of Gustave Richelieu, claimant for 
pecuniary indemnity against Spain on account of his arbitrary arrest, 
false imprisonment, and cruel treatment by the administrative author- 
ities at Santiago de Cuba, with the request that said certificate be filed 
with and attached to the papers in the claim of said Richelieu. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Alexander Porter Morse. 



Boston Emergency Hospital, 

Boston, April 2, 1897. 
To whom it may concern: 

This is to certify that Gustave Richelieu has been treated by me since December, 
1890, for muscular and articular rheumatism, the attacks being so serious at times as 
to occasion the joints to swell up and rendering him unfit to work. 

P. W. Heffern, M. D. 



Mr. RocTchill to Mr. Morse. 

Department of State, 
Washington, April 14, 1897. 
Sir: The Department has received your letter of the 12th instant, 
inclosing a certificate of Dr. P. W. Heffern, of the Boston Emergency 
Hospital, relative to the condition aud treatment of Gustave Richelieu, 
a claimant for indemnity against the Spanish Government. 
Respectfully, yours, 

W. W. Rockhill, 

Assistant Secretary. 



55th Congress, ) SENATE. t Eeport 

1st Session. ] \ No. 371. 



AUGUST BOLTEN AND GUSTAVE EICHELIEU. 



July 7, 1897.— Ordered to be printed. 



Mr. Lodge, from the Committee on Foreign Belations, submitted the 

following 

REPORT. 

[To accompany S. R. 61.] 

The facts in connection with this case are fully recited in Document 
No. 47, Fifty-hfth Congress, first session, and in House Document No. 
224, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session, pages 111 to 134. 

An examination of these documents discloses, in brief, that August 
Bolten and Gustave Bichelieu, two naturalized American citizens, the 
former a native of Sweden and the latter of France, set out in a small, 
open boat about 15 feet long from Port au Prince on February 5, 1895. 
Their object was to fish for green turtles, and, with this in view, they 
intended to sail up as far as Cape Haitieu. Both men were sailors who 
had drifted to Haiti from New York during the years 1893 and 1894. It 
appears that Bolten had managed to save a little money by doing some 
painting at Port au Prince, and that the small fishing boat was his 
property. Before leaving port the men secured the usual papers issued 
from the American consulate, which identified them and established 
their American citizenship. This attempt to go in a small, open boat 
from one Haitien port to another did not succeed, and they were 
finally driven, by stress of weather, to the coast of Cuba. Temporary 
landings were effected at one or two points along the Haitien and 
Cuban coasts, and finally, almost destitute of food and water, and after 
drifting about for several days, they reached Santiago de Cuba. The 
testimony discloses that they at once produced their papers for inspec- 
tion to the captain of the port, explained their distress, and asked to 
be directed to the United States consul. Notwithstanding these 
admitted facts, they were seized by the military authorities on Feb- 
ruary 23, 1895, and thrown into a prison, from which they were not 
released until May 3 following. During this imprisonment both men 
were kept in close confinement much of the time, and both suffered 
great injury to health thereby. Bolten contracted yellow fever. 

The seizure of these men is believed by the committee to have been 
in violation of article 8 of the treaty of 1795, which (in the language 

311 



312 AUGUST BOLTEN AND GUSTAVE RICHELIEU. 

of Secretary Olney) " provides for the hospitable reception of Ameri- 
can citizens who, through stress of weather, are driven upon Spanish 
territory." It is further evident to the committee that the proceedings 
inaugurated by the military authorities against Bolten and Eichelieu 
are a violation of the protocol of January 12, 1877, which (again quot- 
ing Secretary Olney) " provides that citizens of the United States 
taken without arms in hand shall be tried by the ordinary civil tribu- 
nals, to the exclusion of any special tribunal, and when arrested and 
imprisoned shall be deemed to be arrested or imprisoned by order of 
the civil authority." Both men were held by the military authorities 
from the 23d of February to the 21st of March, when they were turned 
over to the civil tribunal of the province of Santiago. It ought further 
to be observed that a most rigid search at the time of their seizure by 
the Spanish authorities failed to disclose any arms or papers or other 
evidences of unlawful intent. 

Bolten and Richelieu have each asked for an indemnity of $ 10,000 from 
the Spanish Government for the injuries resulting from their sixty-two 
days of confinement and also for the confiscation of the fishing boat. 
A settlement of this claim has been pressed upon Spain through the 
proper diplomatic channels of our Government. This effort has been 
unavailing, and the Spanish Government has distinctly declined "to 
discuss any further the present claims" and consider the incident "to 
be definitely ended." 

In view of the above, the committee is of the opinion that it is the 
manifest duty of the United States to take such prompt measures as 
shall be adequate to obtain an indemnity for all wrongs and injuries 
suffered by the two American sailors, Bolten and Richelieu. 

The committee accordingly reports the following joint resolution, and 
^commends its adoption: 

JOINT RESOLUTION for the relief of August Bolten and Gustave Richelieu. 

Whereas it appears from the correspondence transmitted to the Senate by the 
message of the President of the nineteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and 
ninety-seven (Executive Document Numbered Forty-seven, first session Fifty-fifth 
Congress), that au indemnity has been demanded by the executive department of the 
United States from the Spanish Government, but without avail, for the wrongful 
arrest and imprisonment of August Bolten and Gustave Richelieu, two naturalized 
citizens of the United States, under circumstances that render the Kingdom of 
Spain justly responsible therefor; and 

Whereas it further appears, from the correspondence aforesaid, that all the diplo- 
matic efforts of the Government of the United States exerted for an amicable adjust- 
ment and payment of the just indemnity due to the aforesaid citizens of the United 
States, upon whose persons the aforesaid wrongs were inflicted, have proved entirely 
unavailing: Therefore, 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in 
Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby, 
empowered to take such measures as in his judgment may be necessary to obtain 
the indemnity from the Spanish Government for the wrongs and injuries suffered by 
August Bolten and Gustave Richelieu, by reason of their wrongful arrest and impris- 
onment by Spanish authorities at Santiago de Cuba in the year eighteen hundred 
and ninety-five: and to secure this end he is authorized and requested to employ 
such means or exercise such power as may be necessary. 



55th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Executive 

Special Session. \ \ A 



GEORGE WASHINGTON AGUIEEE. 



MESSAGE 

FROM THE 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

IN ANSWER TO 

THE RESOLUTION OF THE SENATE OF FEBRUARY 26, 1897, TRANS- 
MITTING A REPORT FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE AND 
COPIES OF CORRESPONDENCE IN REGARD TO THE CASE OF 
GEORGE WASHINGTON AGUIRRE, IN CUBA. 



March 4, 1897. — Bead the first time and referred to the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions, and, together with the message and accompanying papers, ordered to be 
printed in confidence for the use of the Senate. 



To the Senate : 

I transmit herewith, in answer to the resolution of the Senate of the 
26th ultimo, a report from the Secretary of State, accompanied by 
copies of correspondence, in regard to the case of George Washington 
Aguirre in Cuba. 

As two of these letters, marked " Confidential," contain statements 
that might, if made public, prove prejudicial to Mr. Aguirre's interests, 
1 suggest that they be regarded as confidential. 

Grover Cleveland. 
Executive Mansion, 

Washington, March 3, 1897. 



The President : 

The Secretary of State, to whom was referred the resolution of the 
Senate of the 26th ultimo, wherein the President is requested, "if it is 
not, in his opinion, incompatible with the public interests, to communicate 
to the Senate such information as has been furnished to or obtained by 
the Executive or the Department of State relating to the arrest and 
imprisonment of, and any proceedings against, George Washington 
Aguirre, a youth of 19 years of age, and an alleged citizen of the 
United States, who to obtain the benefit of a general amnesty proclaimed 
by the Captain-General of Cuba, is alleged to have surrendered to the 
Spanish authorities in Cuba on the 4th day of July, 1896," has the 
honor to transmit the accompanying copies of correspondence exchanged 

313 



314 GEORGE WASHINGTON AGUIRRE. 

between this Department and the consul-general of the United States 
at Havana upon the subject. 
Respectfully submitted. 

Richard Olney. 
Department of State, 

Washington, March 3, 1897. 



List of papers. 

Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, telegram, July 14. 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 52, July 15, 1896. 

Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, confidential, July 21, 1896. 

Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee, telegram, July 24, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, telegram, July 25, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, confidential, ahout July 30, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 72, July 30, 1896. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill, No. 87, August 18, 1896. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, No. 636, January 29, 1897. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor, telegram, March 1, 1897. 

Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney, telegram, March 2, 1897. 



Mr. Rockhill to Mr. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 

Washington, July 14, 1896. 
George Aguirre, claiming American citizenship, reported captured by- 
Spanish gunboat and imprisoned at Havana. Investigate and report 
by cable. 

Rockhill. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill. 

No. 52.] United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, July 15, 1896. 

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram, 
dated 14th instant. (See preceding.) 

I had already addressed the Admiral commanding this naval station 
with respect to this case, as Aguirre was captured by the marine 
authorities, and I also sent a communication to the Governor-General 
of the same tenor, both dated 13th instant. I claimed Aguirre as an 
American, a native of New York, certifying to his inscription as such 
in the register of citizens of this consulate-general, and asked for his 
release should there be no charges against him; otherwise that he be 
tried by civil jurisdiction, in conformity with the treaty between the 
United States and Spain of 1795 and the protocol of January 12, 1877. 

1 have received a communication from the Admiral dated 14th instant, 
in which he states that the question of jurisdiction is pending and being 
examined, and that my communication had been referred to the fiscal 
or prosecuting officer for his opinion thereon, according to law. 

I have, in consequence, transmitted the following telegram, which I 
confirm : 

Had already claimed Aguirre American. Informed by Admiral question jurisdic- 
tion now pending. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON AGUIRRE. 315 

Mr. Bockhill to Mr. Lee. 

[Personal. — Confidential.] 

Washington, July 21, 1896. 

Dear General Lee: 1 have been approached here by several 
friends of young George Washington Aguirre, now in prison in Havana, 
and about whom I cabled on the 14th instant, asking if his release from 
prison could not be promptly secured. I told them that you had already 
asked the Captain-General for his release in case there were no charges 
against him, and that I entertained no doubt that you would be able to 
promptly secure it in that case. I added, however, that had he actually 
taken an active part in the military operations of the insurgents, not- 
withstanding his American citizenship, there would probably be con- 
siderable delay, and he might have to undergo a term of imprisonment. 

The boy is represented to me as delicate and under age, and the case 
would seem to be an exceptionally hard one, although he lias flown into 
the lion's mouth of his own free will. 

I trust in view of these facts that the Spanish authorities may be 
found willing to be especially lenient in his case. 
Very truly, yours, 

W. W. Bockhill. 



Mr. Bockhill to 2£r. Lee. 

[Telegram.] 

Washington, July 24, 1896. 
It is reported that George Aguirre has been turned over to the mili- 
tary authorities. His American citizenship being shown to your satis- 
faction, and all known facts disproving capture with arms in hand, you 
will, if reported delivery to military court be true, renew demand for 
civil proceedings, pursuant to treaty and protocol. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bockhill. 

[Telegram.] 

Havana, July 25, 1896. 
Admiral informed me on 23d date previous that he had inhibited 
marine jurisdiction in case George Aguirre in favor of military juris- 
diction. I immediately claimed of Governor-General his trial by civil 
court under treaty or release. jSTo reply yet received. 

Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bockhill. 



[Personal. — Confidential.] 



Consulate-General of the "United States, 

Havana, July — , 1896. (Eeceived about July 30 or 31.) 
My Dear Mr. Bockhill: Replying to your personal letter of 21st 
July, in reference to George Washington Aguirre, I write to say I am 
informed he has been in the insurgent army, and that he left it, went 



316 GEORGE WASHINGTON AGUIRRE. 

to the seashore, and with four companions compelled two Spanish fish- 
ermen to put him in a boat for tbe purpose of reaching Havana. 

His four companions returned to the interior. Aguirre then gave each 
fisherman gold to carry him to Havana, and was captured en route. 
Seeing that he could not avoid capture, he threw his only weapon — his 
pistol — overboard, with some letters and papers he had on his person, 
and when taken stated he was on his way to Havana to " present him- 
self," which means, 1 suppose, to surrender. The impression is that he 
was on his way to New York. 

The poor fishermen have been tried and sentenced to be shot, but 
the sentence was afterwards commuted to ioiprisonment for life in the 
African fortress. 

I have protested against Aguirre's trial by military court, but as yet 
nothing has been done. His case was removed from the marine to the 
military jurisdiction. 

I shall insist, if he is tried, that the trial take place before the civil 
courts, and shall watch his case closely. 

Very truly, yours, Fitzhugh Lee. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. BockhiU. 

No. 72.] United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, July 30, 1896. 

Sir: With reference to my dispatch No. 68, of the 27th instant, rela- 
tive to the case of the American citizen, Mr. George W. Aguirre, cap- 
tured, as I am informed, without arms in hand, in a boat while coming 
to this port, I beg to state that I addressed communications on the 11th 
instant both to the Captain-General and to the admiral of this naval 
station asking for Aguirre's release should there be no charges against 
him; otherwise that he be tried by the civil jurisdiction, in conformity 
with the treaty between the United States and Spain of 1795, and the 
protocol of January 12, 1877. 

On the 23d of July I received a note from the admiral stating that 
he had inhibited the marine jurisdiction in favor of the military, and I 
therefore again addressed another communication to the Captain- 
General confirming my former request of the 11th to the effect that Mr. 
Aguirre be released or tried by the civil jurisdiction. I received yes- 
terday, in response to the above, a note from the Governor-General, 
copy translation of which I beg to submit herewith to the Department. 
I am, etc., 

Fitzhtjgh Lee. 



[Inclosure in JSTo. 72. — Translation.] 

The Governor-General of the Island of Cuba presents his respects to the consul- 
general of the United States, and has the pleasure to inform him, in answer to his 
courteous note of to-day, that the case of the American citizen, Mr. George W. 
Aguirre, is now pending resolution as to what jurisdiction shall have cognizance 
thereof, and that the judge-advocate acting as prosecutor having reported thereon, 
the case is now referred to the judge-advocate-general, who will soon resolve if the 
war jurisdiction shall inhibit the cognizance of the case in favor of the ordinary. 

The Lieutenant-General Weyler, marquis of Tenerife, avails himself of the occa- 
sion to reiterate to Mr. Fitzhugh Lee the assurances of his esteem and distinguished 
consideration. 

Havana, July 29, 1896. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON AGUIRRE. 317 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Rockhill. 

No. 87.] United States Consulate General, 

Havana, August 18, 1896. 
Sir: With reference to my dispatches Nos. 52, 68, and 72, dated, 
respectively, the 15th, 27th, and 30th ultimo, relative to the case of the 
American citizen Mr. George W. Aguirre, I now beg to inclose a copy 
translation of a communication received yesterday from the Captain- 
General, informing me of the transfer of Mr. Aguirre's case to the civil 
jurisdiction for trial. 

I am, sir, etc., Fitzhugh Lee. 



[Inclosure in No. S7. — Translation.] 

Captaincy-General op the Island of Cuba, 

Havana, August 17, 1896. 
The Consul-General of the United States, 

Present. 
Sir: In accord with my judge- advocate, I have, under this date, waived the cogni- 
zance of the cause which had been instituted on the charge of rebellion against the 
American citizen, Mr. George W. Aguirre, Santiuste, in favor of the court of instruc- 
tion of Jaruco, to which in due season will be forwarded the proceedings for their 
continuation. 
I beg to inform you the above for your knowledge. 
God guard you many years. 

Valeriano Weyler. 



Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

No. 630.] United States Legation, 

Madrid, Januarg 29, 1897. 
Sir: On the 22d instant I had the honor to receive from you the fol- 
lowing cablegram in cipher: 

Three United States citizens have been under arrest in Cuba without charges : 
Frank T. Larrieu, Cardenas jail siuce May, 1896; Esteben Venero, Havana, since 
November, 1896; Jose Gonzales, since September, 1896. Demand that charges be 
immediately formulated and made known to accused, or that they be released. The 
following persous have been in Cuban prisons awaiting trial: Joseph L. Cespero, 
since January, 1896; Theodore Vives, since November, 1896; George W. Aguirre, 
since July, 1896; Competitor prisoners since April. Delay in all these cases unrea- 
sonable. Demand immediate trial or release. 

On the 27th instant I had the honor to receive from you the following 
in cipher: 

Yonr cable 26th received. Press demands in mine of 22d with all reasonable dis- 
cretion, of course. Nevertheless, rights and liberty of American citizens are para- 
mount objects of care of this Government. 

Thereupon I immediately asked an interview of the minister for for- 
eign affairs, whose result I reported to you as follows on the 28th instant : 

Interview with minister for foreign affairs to-day. Following answer given to 
your cipher telegram of 22d. Proceedings now going on according to protocol 
against Francis T. Larrieu and Covipetitor prisoners. As to all the rest, whose, cases 
have never before been presented to him, he says he has already requested minis- 
ters for war and colonies to order Cuban authorities to take proper proceedings 
immediately. 

I am, sir, etc., Hannis Taylor. 



318 GEORGE WASHINGTON AGUIREE. 

Mr. Olney to Mr. Taylor. 

[Telegram.] 

Department of State, 
Washington, March 1, 1897. 
Beferriiig my cable January 22 and yours of 28th, am constrained 
to say no progress apparent in any of said cases. Ask immediate 
attention to all of them. 

Olney. 



Mr. Taylor to Mr. Olney. 

[Telegram.] 

Madrid, March 2, 1897. ' 
Interview with minister for foreign affairs, read your last cablegram 
and insisted upon exact answer to each demand contained in your cable- 
gram of January 22. He said that he cabled immediately for reports 
in each case, which are now arriving by mail. From data in hand, says 
charges have been made in the three cases of which you complained 
on that account; in every case says proceedings are going on according 
to law and protocol, and will do all possible to hasten them. Cuban 
authorities say Jose Gonzales has not claimed to be American citizen. 
Witnesses now being examined in case of Larrieu. 

Taylor. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



In the Senate of the United States, 

May 16, 1896. 
Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Relations is directed to inquire and 
Import to the Seriate what are the rights of the United States, under our treaties with 
ftpain, as to the trial of our citizens arrested in Cuha and now under condemnation 
and sentenced to death by the Spanish military tribunals, for alleged offenses of a 
political or other character against the Spanish laws or Government, and to report 
on that subject by bill or otherwise. 

2. That the Secretary of State is directed to send to the Senate literal copies of 
the original text of a protocol of conference and declarations concerning judicial 
procedure, signed by Caleb Gushing, as minister of the United States, and Seiior Don 
Fernando Y. Collantes, minister of the King of Spain, on January twelfth, eighteen 
hundred and seventy-seven, as the same was executed and interchanged, both in 
the English and Spanish languages; and that he will inform the Senate whether the 
established or agreed original text of said protocol is in the English or the Spanish 
language. 

3. That the President is requested, if it is not incompatible with the public serv- 
ice, to communicate to the Senate copies of any correspondence that has taken place 
between the Governments of Spain and the United States respecting the said protocol 
and its bearing or effect upon the trial and condemnation of citizens of the United 
States who were recently captured on or near the vessel called the Competitor, 
v-hich was seized under Spanish authority in Cuban waters, or near to that island. 

Attest : 

Wm. K. Cox, Secretary. 

319 



May 20, 1896, 
STATEMENT OF FREDERICK W. LAWRENCE. 

Frederick W. Lawrence was duly sworn. 
By Senator DAVIS: 

Q. What is your full name? — A. Frederick W. Lawrence. 

Q. Where do you live? — A. In New York City at present. 

Q. What is your employment 1 ? — A. Correspondent of the New York 
Journal. 

Q. How long have you been so employed? — A. Since December. 

Q. Are you a citizen of the United States? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have you visited the Island of Cuba recently ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When did you arrive there? — A. Nine weeks ago last Saturday. 

Q. Until when did you remain? — A. A week ago last Sunday. 

Q. In what capacity ? — A. As correspondent to the Journal. 

Q. In what place in Cuba did you remain? — A. At Habana. 

Q. Were you during your stay in Cuba at any time within the lines 
of the insurgent troops? — A. No, sir; I made no effort to disobey the 
laws of the Government of Cuba. 

Q. Did you make auy excursions from Habana? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How many? — A. Three. 

Q. State to what places and the distance to each place. — A. To 
Guines, a distance of about 40 miles; Guanabacoa, a distance of about 
7 miles, and to Marinoa, a distance of about 9 miles. 

Q. Were all of these places within the Spanish line? — A. Every one 
of them; yes, sir; that is to say, the Spanish claimed them, and at the 
time I went to them they were; but recently the insurgents have gone 
to at least one of them, that is Marinoa. 

Q. Do you mean permanently advanced their line? — A. No, sir; they 
have no lines; that is, their columns have gone in and got out again; 
they have broken the Spanish lines. 

Q. Under what circumstances did you leave the Island of Cuba? — A. 
I was expelled by order of the Captain-General. 

Q. Was that order verbal or in writing? — A. In writing. 

Q. Have you a copy of it? — A. I have it in New York. 

Q. Will you furnish a copy to the committee? — A. With pleasure. 

Q. When was that order delivered to you? — A. It was delivered to 
me on Thursday before I left Habana. 

Q. Does the order allege for what reason it was given? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What reason was given? — A. It is alleged that both James Creel- 
man and myself, he being named in the same order, were expelled from 

321 
21 



322 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

the Island of Cuba for sending to our papers false notices of cruelties 
by the Spanish troops, and inventing news of insurgent victories. 

Q. Were those statements true? — A. Not a single statement made 
in the order of deportation is true, except the words that we are the 
correspondents. I so informed the Captain-General in writing before 
I left there. 

Q. Did you receive any response? — A. No, sir. 

Q. When you arrived in Habana, which I understand you to say was 
March 20, 1896, did you place yourself in communication with the 
Spanish authorities? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. For what purpose did you place yourself in communication with 
them? — A. For the purpose of gathering information concerning the 
situation of affairs there and gathering news that would be of interest 
to the people of this country or to my paper. 

Q. Did you state your purpose to them? — A. I made no statement to 
them, but made no attempt to conceal from them my purpose, and 
openly and avowedly stated. I was there for the purpose of obtaining 
information. 

Q. Did you desire to obtain information from the Spanish authorities 
as to the condition of affairs in Cuba? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. With what success? — A. Very little; absolutely none as far as the 
true condition of affairs was concerned. 

Q. Did they give you at all their version of current events? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you ascertain whether such information was reliable or unre- 
liable? — A. At the time, having no other information at hand, I was 
compelled to accept it as reliable, and so sent it, but found afterwards 
that statements given to me were untrue. 

Q. From what source did you find those statements were untrue ?— 
A. From gentlemen who came into Habana and also gentlemen in 
Habana. 

Q. From gentlemen who came from where? — A. From gentlemen 
who came into Habana from where the scene of action was laid. 

Q. From territory occupied by the insurgents? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. In what respects, stating generally, did you find this information 
to be unreliable? — A. As to battles fought. 

Q. Well, in what respect as to them ? — A. The military censor is the 
man who gives out the Government reports of engagements between 
the Spanish and insurgents. He has hours for doing it and at those 
hours all the newspaper men in Habana are supposed to be present. 
He edits them, and the Habana newspapers are compelled to print 
them. Before they are written up they are compelled to be submitted 
to the censor, who arranges them as to what he wishes the public to 
know, and if the published news is changed in the smallest particular 
from the way it is handed in, the papers are subject to fine and the 
editors are subject to imprisonment. I found that in the reports of 
skirmishes the military censor invariably reported that the Spanish 
had killed from three to a dozen, or perhaps more, men, and had cap- 
tured so many horses or had killed so many horses and had wounded so 
many, while communication from the ranks of the insurgents to their 
friends in Habana would be entirely the reverse. The news I received, 
then, would be entirely different from that given out from the Spanish 
censor. That was invariably the case. 

Q. The result, then, was you could not know which was nearest the 
truth? — A. Personally I have no knowledge of it. I did not go outside 
the lines and did not count the dead and dying or anything of that 



CONDITION OF AFFA1KS IN CUBA. 323 

kind; but the gentlemen who would bring me information — and I did 
not have to seek for it, they were only too willing to give it to me — were 
men of the very highest character. They were men whose word is cer- 
tain to be believed, at least on an equality with that of any man who 
walks the earth. I found that those gentlemen who brought me such 
information were conservative ; that sometimes they would give the 
Spanish a victory and sometimes they would give the insurgent side a 
victory in these little skirmishes, while the news given us by the Span- 
ish censor invariably gave the Spanish a victory. 

Q. Were these gentlemen on the side of the insurgents? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. So for that reason you were inclined to give their account greater 
credit than that of the censor"? — A. Yes, sir; and for this reason I 
found the sympathizers with the insurgents were more conservative 
than the other; that is, they were willing to concede a battle now and 
then to the other side, while the Spanish side of the news was that of 
a Spanish victory. 

Q. Was there anything in the Spanish account about the capture of 
Pinar del Rio? — A. The censor did not report the capture of Pinar del 
Rio, and in fact when it was reported that it was captured it was vehe- 
mently denied by the authorities. 

Q. Did the censor give out that Maceo had attacked that town and 
been repulsed? — A. No, sir. 

Q. I see in your report to Secretary Olney you say that "the Gov- 
ernment gave out the announcement that Maceo had attacked the town 
and been repulsed in short order and with great loss, the Spanish loss 
not being stated." — A. That statement is made upon the statement of 
William Shaw Bowen, as ardent an admirer of Cuba as ever stepped 
foot in Habana. He told me that within a week after the account of 
the capture of Pinar del Eio was printed Weyler had informed him per- 
sonally that the Cubans had not only attacked Pinar del Rio, but had 
been repulsed. 

Q. Did you report that? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you afterwards state that was untrue? — A. From all the 
information I could gather from people who came in from Pinar del 
Rio — Cuban sympathizers, it is true, but honorable men — the city of 
Pinar del Rio was held for nearly two hours, and they created great 
destruction and were not driven off, but vacated the town of their own 
accord. 

Q. Do you know anything of your own knowledge in regard to the 
treatment of American citizens by the Spanish authorities during your 
stay? — A. Do you mean by that was I personally present when ill 
treatment was inflicted upon them or have I the knowledge from the 
men themselves? 

Q. Just answer that. Did you personally see or know of ill treat- 
ment of American citizens? — A. Yes, sir. I found Mr. Walter Grant 
Dygert, a citizen of the United States, from the State of Illinois, 
imprisoned at the prison at Guines, in a little cell, probably not half 
as large as this room, in which there were 22 other men and in which 
there were no sanitary arrangements worth speaking of. 

Q. That would be a room about 16 by 18 feet. How many people 
were there with him? — A. Twenty-two; he made 23. 

Q. Closely confined there all the while? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What was the condition of the room as to cleanliness? — A. It was 
simply filthy. The people with him were the dirtiest men I ever looked 
on in my life, and I have been in a great many American prisons. 

Q. How long had he been there? — A. About three months. 



324 CONDITION OF AFFAIKS IN CUBA. 

Q. How long did he remain there after you discovered him? — A. 
About two weeks. 

Q. What was the charge made against him? — A. The charge made 
against him was that he was outside the territory designated as that 
proper to travel in by General Weyler. He was found on the outskirts 
of the city of Guines. That was one charge against him, and the other 
charge made against him was that he was William Gold, otherwise 
known as "Inglesito." 

Q. Had there been any investigation made by the Spanish authori- 
ties? — Yes, sir. 

Q. Any investigation at which he was present? — A. Yes, sir; and 
testimony taken; and Marquis Palmerola told me the Government was 
thoroughly satisfied of his innocence for two weeks. I saw the Marquis 
on a Saturday, and he told me they would have released him the day 
before or the day before that but for the fact that they were holy days — 
Holy Thursday and Holy Friday — and the Spanish do nothing on those 
days. 

Q. Did you know anything about the kind of food furnished him? — 
A. Only what Mr. Dygert told me. 

Q. What did he say? — A. He told me the food was execrable. He 
told me that but for the fact that the commandant of the prison, whose 
name I forget, but it is in my papers, was a pretty decent sort of a fel- 
low, he would have committed suicide long before he saw me. 

Q. Did these prisoners take any exercise? — A. I did not ask about 
that. They were in a cell with iron bars on the side; that is, they 
could get air, but not sufficient in that cell. 

Q. Was it a stone cell? — A. Yes, sir; with the iron bars on one side. 

Q. What kind of a floor? — A. Stone floor. Mr. Dygert told me at 
the time I was conversing with him that at that very moment he was 
crawling with vermin, and his scratching and conduct generally was 
pretty good evidence that he was. 

By Senator Morgan: 

Q. What were the sleeping arrangements? — A. None. They had to 
sleep on the floor. 

Q. They furnished him blankets, I suppose? — A. No, sir; that was 
perhaps unnecessary, for I suppose blankets would have been too warm. 

By Senator DAVIS : 

Q. Did he speak of being allowed a change of clothing? — A. He had 
not been allowed a change of clothing during his imprisonment. 

Q. How long before his release was it that Marquis Palmerola told 
you that the Government had known his innocence? — A. He told me 
the Government had known it two weeks absolutely. 

Q. That was three weeks before his discharge? — A. The Marquis 
Palmerola told me that the Government had been absolutely sure of his 
innocence two weeks prior to the day I saw the Marquis. 

Q. Then that makes about four weeks after they knew or confessed 
they knew he was innocent? — A. Yes, sir; and the testimony had been 
in the possession of Marquis Palmerola over two months. 

Q. Did he tell you why he had not examined that testimony until 
after it had been two months in his hands?— A. It was not his business 
to examine it. 

Q. Do you give that to me as his answer or your reason? — A. My 
reason 

Q. No; answer my question. Did he tell you why he had not exam- 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 325 

hied that testimony for two months after it had been in his hands'? — 
A. He did not. 

Q. State any other instances of maltreatment of American citizens 
by the Spanish authorities there. — A. If you will permit me to state 
what the American citizens told me 

Q. I will cover that by a subsequent question. — A. I saw no other 
ill treatment, unless you consider the expulsion of American citizens 
from Habana ill treatment. 

Q. Did you see any expulsion of American citizens? — A. Yes, sir. 
Mr. Rapley, correspondent of the New York Mail and Express, was 
resting in his bed 

Q. Did you see this? — A. No; I did not. 

Q. Well, during- your stay in Habana did you learn from sources you 
considered reliable of other instances of ill treatment of citizens of the 
United States by the Spanish authorities! If so, go on and state them, 
and give your sources of information. — A. Mr. Eapley, the corre- 
spondent of the New York Mail and Express, came to me one day about 
two or three weeks after I arrived at Habana and told me that upon 
the night before, between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning, he had been 
aroused in his bed by the chief of police and three or four commission- 
ers — police inspectors — and had been served with a notice of deporta- 
tion. He showed me the notice, but it was in Spanish and I could only 
guess at its contents. He applied to Consul-General Williams to have 
his time extended. He was to leave on the first steamer, and the first 
steamer sailed on the following day and he could not get ready to go 
on it, so he applied to Consul-General Williams for permission to pro- 
long his stay until the following steamer, and Mr. Williams secured 
him that permission. He left on the following steamer. 

Q. What was the alleged cause? — A. Sending false information to 
his paper. That has been the reason that General Weyler has alleged 
for the expulsion of all the correspondents whom he has expelled. 
There were four of us expelled. 

Q. Go on and give the next instance. — A. The case of Mr. Darling, 
an artist for Harper's Weekly, who has been arrested in territory that 
is not included in the Captain-General's edict, released each time, but 
detained from one hour to several hours — by several hours I mean eight 
or ten. I am not certain about the American citizenship of Mr. O'Leary, 
so I will not state his case. . Mr. Creelman, of the New York Herald, 
was expelled at the same time I was; forbidden to remain longer on the 
island. 

Q. Upon what charge? — A. Upon the charge of sending false infor- 
mation as to the state of affairs in Cuba. I was expelled for the same 
reason at the same time. 

Q. Now, these cases are those of newspaper correspondents. I apply 
my main question to ill treatment of other American citizens, resident 
or temporary, of the island. — A. The cases of Alfred Laborde and 
Milton. 

Q. Citizens of the United States? — A. Citizens of the United States. 

Q. Is your information derived from what they told you? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Who did you get it from? — A. From the testimony produced at 
the court-martial and from Vice-Consul Joseph Springer. 

Q. With what were these two men charged? — A. They were charged 
with bringing a filibustering expedition into the Island of Cuba. 

Q. Is that the case of the Competitor? — A. Yes, sir. Those two men, 
American citizens, were arrested, and, so far as the testimony of the 



326 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

men who captured them goes, had no arms upon their persons. They 
were brought to Habana, tried by general court-martial against the 
energetic protest of the United States consul-general there, condemned 
to death, and, as I am informed, their sentence delayed by the Madrid 
government at the request of the Secretary of State, and still held in 
jail. 

Q. Do you know whether they were assisted by counsel at their 
trial? — A. From the American point of view, they were not assisted by 
counsel at their trial; from the Spanish military point of view, they 
were. 

Q. In what way 1 ? — A. They had a lieutenant in the navy, who asked 
no questions, who cross-examined no witnesses. There were none pro- 
duced, except Captain Butron and the other officers of the Mensajerra. 

Q. Did this lieutenant advance by way of plea that these men were 
American citizens ? — A. He stated in his plea that they were American 
citizens. 

Q. Upon what grounds did he rest their defense? — A. He asked for 
mercy for Laborde, for the illustrious place his name had borne in the 
Spanish navy, and on account of the things his people had done for the 
Spanish Government. 

Q. And the other man? — A. He asked for mercy for him, stating 
that he was not there for the purpose of fighting, but merely in his 
business as a newspaper correspondent. 

Q. Do you know whether it appeared on that trial how far the Com- 
petitor was from the shore of Cuba when she was captured ? — A. I do 
not remember. 

Q. Do you know whether there was any evidence of that given on 
the trial? — A. At the trial there was no evidence given whatever. 

Q. I mean as to the distance? — A. As to the distance or anything 
else. 

Q. Have you any information as to the distance she was from the 
shore? — A. As to the exact distance, I do not know whether she was 
within the 3-mile limit or not. 

Q. Was this trial secret or public? — A. Public. 

Q. Did you attend it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Were the men in irons when tried ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. How long did it last? — A. From a little after 8 o'clock in the 
morning until afternoon. 

Q. How many were tried? — A. Five, at once. 

Q. How long was this after their arrest? — A. It was in the neighbor- 
hood of a week, more or less. 

Q. Was any application made at the trial for postponement until they 
could communicate with their Government? — A. No, sir. Mr. Williams, 
however, saw them before the trial commenced and asked the judge- 
advocate in my presence what sort of a trial it was to be, and the judge- 
advocate replied, "A summary trial." Mr. Williams then replied, "I 
refuse to lend any official recognition to this trial. I protest against 
it;" and left. 

Q. So that no officer of the consular service of the United States was 
present at that trial? — A. No, sir. 

Q. In what manner was this lieutenant appointed ? — A. I do not know. 
If you care for presumption, I presume the judge-advocate appointed 
him. 

Q. Was he appointed as deputy judge-advocate? — A. No; he was 
appointed as what they call "defensor." There was a prosecutor also 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 327 

He made his plea in about tbe same way as one of our district attorneys 
would make a plea in this country. 

Q. Well, this person was an officer in the Spanish navy, was he? — 
A. Oli, yes. He asked no questions, however. Neither the prosecutor 
nor the counsel for defense asked a single question of anybody. There 
was not a particle of testimony offered except the officers of the 
iMcnsiiji rra. 

Q. Was there any interpreter present? — A. There was an interpreter 
present, but he did not make his presence known to the prisoners until 
they were asked whether they had anything to say in their own defense. 
These long statements were read by the judge-advocate in Spanish. 

Q. These long statements of the prosecuting officer, you mean, was 
the evidence given in Spanish and translated in their hearing 1 ? — A. No, 
sir. 

Q. Did their defender communicate to them the substance of it? — A. 
He did not utter one single word to them. 

Q. Can he speak English? — A. I did not hear him. 

Q. Have you any reason to think he could speak the English lan- 
guage? — A. No, sir; I have every reason to think he could not. 

Q. So that all this long harangue was delivered in Spanish? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. And then they were asked what they had to say? — A. Yes, sirj 
what they had to say in defense. 

Q. Did he ask that in English? — A. He did not even do that. The 
presiding officer of the court-martial — there were ten of them, what we 
might call the jury — the presiding officer of that body said to Laborde 
in Spanish, "What have you to say?" He said a few words, and so 
it went until the last man was reached — William Gilday — and the pre- 
siding officer spoke to him and he did not understand him, and then 
the interpreter got up and said, "Do you wish to say anything?" 
Gilday arose and said, "All I have got to say is I do not understand 
one word that has been said to-day, for me or against me, and at any 
rate I appeal to both the British and American consuls." 

Q. Now, how many of these prisoners could not speak or understand 
Spanish? — A. I believe there were two who could not speak and under- 
stand Spanish. 

Q. Which two ? — A. Milton and Gilday. Laborde understood Span- 
ish. 

Q. Milton was the American and Gilday the naturalized American 
subject? — A. Yes, sir; I believe there is some question whether Gilday 
is a British subject or American. The British consul claims that he is 
a naturalized American, but he himself says he never renounced his 
allegiance to Great Britain. 

Q. How long was it after they were asked whether they had anything 
to say before the trial terminated? — A. The trial terminated immedi- 
ately upon the last man having made his statement. 

Q. And when was it the defense summed up in their behalf, if at 
all? — A. Immediately after the prosecution. 

Q. How long did it take him to conclude that summing up? — A. It 
took probably fifteen minutes. 

By Senator Morgan : 
Q. But his appeal, as I understand you, was entirely for mercy and 
not for justification. — A. All for mercy, except you can call his plea 
for Milton that he was not there as a filibuster, but merely as a news- 
paper correspondent. 



328 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. Did Milton undertake to give any account of why he was there?— 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What account did he give? — A. He stated he came aboard the 
schooner as the correspondent of the Jacksonville Times-Union. 

Q. Did he state he knew anything of the mission of the schooner? — 
A. He did not say. That is the statement that was made by him sev- 
eral days before the trial. 

Q. What did Gilday have to say for himself? — A. He said he was a 
poor sailor earning his living, and he went aboard thinking the schooner 
was bound from Key West — I think it was for Sable Keys, going fish- 
ing; that he knew nothing of the nature of the business until after it 
started. Laborde claimed that his ship had been hired by some person 
for the purpose of going to Sable Keys for the purpose of fishing there, 
and he was simply held up by a revolver and told to go to Cuba. 

Q. Laborde was the owner of the schooner? — A. No; he was the 
captain. 

By Senator Morgan: 

Q. What did you ascertain to be the general feeling of the native 
Cubans you saw as to this rebellion or war? — A. The Cubans, all the 
natives of Cuba that I have seen who in the past have possessed any 
wealth at all, told me they had wrecked themselves to help along the 
war. 

Q. I have seen statements in the papers about volunteer companies 
and regiments and perhaps brigades of native Cubans under the Span- 
ish flag. Did you see anything of that sort there? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. To what extent, probably, were those enlistments? — A. Well, 
just giving a rough estimate — I never looked into the official records — 
but giving a rough guess, judging by the numbers of volunteers I saw 
in the streets, I should judge there were 3,000 volunteers. 

Q. Were they volunteers for service in the field or for particular 
duty? — A. No, sir; they were volunteers for service in and around the 
outskirts of the city of Habana, guarding the banks, public buildings, 
theaters, and the like. 

By Senator DAVIS : 

Q. A sort of gendarmes? — A. That is it. 
By Senator Morgan : 

Q. Sort of home guards ? — A. Yes, sir. In fact they were not required 
to go into the field at all. Several of the volunteers who are now dis- 
gusted with the step they have taken would willingly join the insurgents. 

Q. Have any of these volunteer organizations been sent to the tro- 
cha? — A. I could not find out. I tried to find out, but the Government 
authorities would give me no information on the subject at all. 

Q. What impression did the Spanish make upon you as to the char- 
acter of the troops — the people employed in the army — as to whether they 
were substantial men, and men of intelligence and physical vigor, and 
so on? — A. They impressed me as being very patriotic and very cour- 
ageous men — the Spanish themselves — but with one drawback, and that 
was lack of patriotism, caused, as they told me — that is, the privates, not 
the officers — caused by the fact that they are illy fed, illy clad, com- 
pelled to do the most menial service, and have not been paid for nearly 
five months. You go into the streets of Habana any hour of the night 
and if you look like a man of any means at all you will be asked for 
alms by Spanish soldiers. I used to go along there and give them 10 



CONDITION OP AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 329 

cents or a nickel or a quarter, whatever I might happen to have in my 
pocket when they asked me, and at the same time say "Americano," 
knowing that there was no knowing how long itmiglit be before I would 
be in the hands of those men, and wished to be friendly with them. So 
whenever I gave them anything, I always said "Americano." 

By Senator Davis : 
Q. In the course of that trial, were any attacks made by the prose- 
cuting officer upon the United States Government? — A. No, sir. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. While in Cuba did you visit any places around Habana? — A. Only 
the places I have named. 

Q. How far out? — A. Forty miles. 

Q. Did you leave the railroad track? — A. I did not leave the railroad 
track. I got off the train at the town of Guines and went about my 
business, which was to see Walter Dygert. 

Q. Did you observe, or could you observe, the condition of the people 
in the country? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What was it? — A. Wretched. Take a few coppers from your 
pocket and throw them in the street and half the population would 
scramble for them. I remember now where I went down one morning 
to the club, and a little child playing around there attracted my atten- 
tion. I gave it a few coppers and soon a dozen people came out and 
begged, saying they had no food. I went out on the drive one morning 
and went into a grocery store and was besieged by people who wanted 
me to buy groceries for them. 

Q. What is the currency about Habana? — A. Copper, silver, and gold. 

Q. No paper money ? — A. No ; no paper money, except now and then 
an American greenback. 

Q. They have no national paper currency? — A. No, sir; not in 
Habana, at least. 

By Senator Davis : 
Q. Is there anything else of detail you would like to state that we 
have not interrogated you about? — A. I can not think of anything thafc 
would be of interest. Before leaving there I wrote to the Captain- 
General offering to prove to him every line I had written. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. What, in your judgment, derived from what you ascertained whi)e 
in the Island of Cuba, is the prospect of success of the insurgent gov- 
ernment? — A. A very long fight and the ultimate success of the insur- 
gent government if left alone — if left in the condition they are now. 
The insurgents are in a position, in my judgment, to fight for fifty years 
in the way they are fighting now. 

Q. Did you derive any impression from Spanish sources while yon 
were there as to their hopes for subjection of the insurgents? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. What was it? — A. Captain-General Weyler told me himself, within 
a week after I landed there, that he would have it suppressed within 
three months, and every Spanish officer I spoke to was very sanguine 
of it. 

Q. I understand that the forces of Maceo and Gomez are divided now 
by what is called the trocha? — A. Well, they are divided by thetrocha 
and quite a good deal of territory east of the trocha. 

Q. In the military arrangements of that country Maceo has been 
assigued to the district called Piuar del Bio? — A. That is true. 



330 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. And other generals to two other different provinces and Gomez 
is commander in chief of the whole army? — A. Of the entire army ; and 
if Antonio Maceo obeys his orders that he has received from his chief, 
he will remain in Pinar del Eio. 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. Mr. Lawrence, I hold in my hand the New York Journal of May 
19, containing your statement to the Secretary of State, signed by you, 
dated May 18, 1896. Is that statement true? — A. Every word of it. 

The statement is as follows : 

Hon. Eichard Olney, 

Secretary of State : 

In accordance with the understanding between yourself and Mr. 
Edward Marshall, of the New York Journal, I herewith submit to you 
a statement embracing such of my observations of the condition of 
affairs in Cuba as it seems likely may be of interest to yourself and the 
State Department. These were gained during my sojourn in Habana 
as the correspondent of the New York Journal. It is as much the duty 
of a newspaper man as it is the duty of a diplomatic agent to sift 
rumors and ascertain exact facts. This is what I endeavored to do. 

I went to Cuba entirely unprejudiced, and with instructions from Mr. 
W. E. Hearst, the proprietor of the New York Journal, to exercise the 
utmost care in preparing my telegrams and letters, and to especially 
avoid giving favor to one side at the expense of the other. At that 
time the impression generally prevailed that the wrongs which had led 
to the insurrection and the strength of the rebels had been somewhat 
exaggerated by the correspondents of American newspapers. I was 
one of those who believed that to be true. 

On my arrival in Habana (March 20) I immediately placed myself in 
communication with the recognized Spanish authorities. It was my 
first effort to gain an impartial and complete view of the condition of 
affairs in Cuba as it then existed. I found that it was most difficult to 
obtain information from the Spanish authorities. Such information 
as they chose to give out — even of military movements long passed — 
was not announced in the form in which it had been communicated to 
the authorities by the commanders in the field, but was revised and 
changed in Habana. This became immediately evident. 

SPANIARDS DISTORTED FACTS. 

Even after the correspondents had made up their news dispatches 
from these revised Government reports the dispatches were subjected to 
the most rigid scrutiny by the press censor, who often changed facts 
so that they were in complete conflict with the statements which the 
Government had a few hours previously issued as truths. This was, it 
was noticeable, only done when the strength and operations of the 
insurgents could be belittled thereby, or the successful operations of 
the Spanish troops magnified. 

For example, I will instance the capture of the city of Pinar del Eio, 
a Spanish fortress and stronghold in the Province of Pinar del Eio, in 
two hours by the army of the Cuban Eepublic under the command of 
Gen. Antonio Maceo. This occurred during my first week on the island. 
The Government gave out the announcement that Maceo had attacked 
the town and been repulsed in short order and with great loss, the 
Spanish loss not being stated. 

I accepted the Government's statement as true, and cabled it to the 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 331 

Journal. A few days later reliable information was received from Gen- 
eral Maceo that the battle bad resulted in a victory for the army of the 
Cuban Republic, the Spanish garrison having- been driven from the town 
in a demoralized condition, after which the Cuban soldiers destroyed 
over 200 houses. The Cuban loss did not exceed 50 men, while 300 
Spaniards were killed. This news I telegraphed to my paper after 
having verified it absolutely. 

After its publication the Spaniards in Cuba vehemently denied its 
truth, reiterating their previous statements. Later the truth of the 
Cuban story was verified by cable dispatches from Madrid, the verifi- 
cation being based upon Captain-General Weyler's own report to the 
home Government. I may say that my second dispatch announcing 
the Cuban victory did not pass through the hands of the press censor. 
It was sent by means of a private messenger, via Key West, Fla. This 
is a fair sample of the methods which the Spanish authorities in 
Habana follow in giving out news to all parties. 

FOREIGN POWERS DECEIVED. 

The representatives of all the foreign Governments in Habana receive 
their information through the same unreliable channels through which 
information is passed to the newspaper correspondents. It is invaria- 
bly scrutinized and altered to suit the Spanish authorities before it is 
made public. On the other hand, it is quite as true that unreliable 
information and exaggerated reports are constantly being offered to 
correspondents and others by the insurgents and their sympathizers. 
This false news from the insurgent side, however, is without the official 
stamp. Such news as goes to the correspondents or others through the 
Cuban headquarters there, under the sanction of the authorities of 
the Cuban Republic, is, my experience teaches me, invariably reliable. 

It is almost always ultimately verified by the Spaniards themselves, 
either in Habana or Madrid. 

These statements, I think, dispose of any question which may arise 
concerning the reliability of the announcements made by American 
newspaper correspondents in Habana which have been denied by the 
Spanish authorities. 

TREATMENT OF AMERICANS. 

A matter which should, I think, be especially called to the attention 
of yourself and the State Department concerns the treatment of Amer- 
ican citizens by the Spanish authorities in Habana. I will first refer 
to the case of Walter Grant Dygert, of Illinois. While taking a morn- 
ing walk on the outskirts of the town of Guines, in the Province of 
Habana, within 20 miles of the Spanish capital of Cuba, he was arrested 
by Spanish soldiers under the supposition that he was William Gold, 
otherwise known as "Inglesito," a noted Cuban officer. He was placed 
in the military jail at Guines. 

Evidence was found in his possession which proved conclusively that 
he had arrived in Cuba ouly three days prior to his arrest, and there- 
fore could not have been "Inglesito," who had been fighting with the 
army of the Cuban Republic for almost a year past. Still, he was placed 
"incommunicado," which means that he could neither send nor receive 
communications to or from any living human being except the Spanish 
authorities. He asserted his American citizenship and his complete 
innocence of any offense against the Spanish laws, but the authorities 
even refused to notify the United States consul-general at Habana of 
the fact that Dygert had been arrested. 



332 CONDITION OP AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Through Cuban sympathizers who had learned of his predicament 
Mr. Charles Michelson, who was then the Journal correspondent at 
Habana, was informed of Dygert's arrest. He immediately laid the 
facts before United States Consul-General Williams. I am informed 
that Consul-General Williams made every effort to communicate with 
Dygert, but that he could not gain from the Spanish authorities even 
an admission that Dygert was under arrest until the fact became so 
publicly known that further equivocation was useless. 

INNOCENT MAN IN PRISON. 

.In the end the authorities admitted the innocence of Dygert — admit- 
ted it even to the American consul-general — but still held him in jail 
for over two months, in spite of the protests of Consul-General Wil- 
liams. The reason that he was not released sooner was because he 
refused to sign a waiver of any claims for damages that he might have 
against the Spanish Government. 

Another case is that of Frank Agramonte, a citizen of ISTew York 
State and a member of the militia of that Commonwealth. He was 
arrested and confined in the military jail in the Province of Santiago de 
Cuba. What has become of him no man except those who have been 
concerned in his disappearance can tell. The American consular office 
at Habana informed me that it has never been notified of the arrest of 
Agramonte, and that inquiries made at the palace of the Captain-Gen- 
eral have been met with the reply that they knew nothing about the 
case. 

Personally I made inquiry concerning him, but was not able to learn 
from the Spanish authorities whether he was in prison or at liberty, 
alive or dead. That he was arrested there is not the slightest doubt. 
I have come in personal contact with four men who saw him in the 
custody of the Spanish soldiers. 

You are probably better informed than myself regarding the cases of 
the Americans arrested in connection with the so-called Competitor 
expedition, but I may add to your information the facts that upon learn- 
ing of their capture the Captain General issued orders for a court- 
martial to convene immediately upon their arrival, and personally 
expressed the hope that they would be executed within twenty-four 
hours, as a warning to others who might accompany or seek to accom- 
pany insurgent expeditions to Cuba. This was before the Captain- 
General knew that the prisoners had been taken on the water, and 
were, therefore, subject to the jurisdiction of the naval and not the 
land authorities. 

SPAIN VIOLATED THE PROTOCOL. 

You know that in the trial of these men the Government of Spain 
violated both the letter and spirit of the protocol of 1877, known as the 
Cushing protocol. I was personally present when Consul-General Wil- 
liams and Vice-Consul Springer protested against such procedure in the 
cases of American citizens. The protest was made in the name of the 
United States Government, and, as Mr. Williams stated, by order of 
the State Department. The officer who received the protest was the 
judge advocate of the court-martial, and the time was one hour before 
the beginning of the trial. 

I may state, however, that Mr. Williams had made the same protest 
in writing, several days previously, and that his letter was read at the 
court -martial. The judge advocate consulted with the prosecuting 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 333 

jfficer, who decided that the trial must proceed, notwithstanding lie 
objections raised by the American Government. The fact that the trial 
was held and that the prisoners were found guilty and sentenced to 
death are matters on which you have already been informed by Consul- 
General Williams. Even though the Madrid authorities have ordered 
a suspension of sentence, at the request of Minister Taylor, the pi is 
oners are still subject to the sentence, which may be carried out at 
any time at the will of the Spanish Government. 

weyler's queer ideas. 

It should also be called to the attention of the State Department that 
Captain-General Weyler does not openly recognize the treaty rights of 
the United States in this matter, but that he describes concessions which 
are evidently made under treaty provisions as favors to the United 
States, thus placing this Government in the attitude of being under 
obligations to Spain. This may be illustrated by citing the cases of 
Charles Michaelson and Lorenzo Betancourt, correspondents of the 
Journal, who were arrested in Habana and confined in Morro Castle. 

Messrs. Michaelson and Betancourt were arrested on the charge that 
they had passed the Spanish lines without the permission of the author- 
ities. It immediately became evident that it was a case of mistaken 
identity, as neither of the men arrested had, in reality, passed the 
Spanish lines or had attempted to do so. Shortly after their arrest, 
and after the consul-general of the United States had made a formal 
demand upon the Spanish authorities for the release of the men, the 
Bermuda expedition was stopped by the United States Government 
officials as it was leaving New York Harbor. 

Captain-General Weyler then released Michaelson and Betancourt, 
with the statement that he did it as a favor to the United States in 
recognition of the prompt action of your Department in stopping the 
Bermuda. Thus, instead of admitting the treaty rights of the United 
States and according a civil trial to all American citizens arrested in 
Cuba not actually "with arms in hand," he places this Government in 
the humiliating position of suing for and accepting favors at the hands 
of the Spanish Government. I was informed shortly before I left 
Habana that the cases of Messrs. Michaelson and Betancourt had not 
been closed, but were still open. The two men are, then, merely on 
parole. The Spanish Government may take their cases up at any time. 
Michaelson has left Cuba, but Betancourt is still in Habana. 

RECOGNIZES NO TREATY RIGHTS. 

In not a single instance has Captain-General Weyler officially recog- 
nized the treaty rights of United States citizens in such matters. 
Invariably when he has ordered a civil trial he has announced that he 
did it as a favor to the United States. In the case of the Competitor 
Americans he absolutely refused to concede their rights to other than 
summary trial by court-martial. He insisted, without any foundation 
in fact for the assumption, that these men were captured with "arms 
in hand." His own witnesses, Captain Butron, the engineer, and other 
officers of the war launch 3Iensajerra, which captured the Competitor, 
testified that the men made no resistance whatever; that they yielded 
to the demands of the officers of the Mensajerra without a struggle, and 
that they had no arms upon their persons. 

Nevertheless, the Captain-General would have carried out the sentence 



334 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

of death imposed had not the activity of your Department compelled 
an order from the home Government at Madrid ordering the sentences 
to be suspended. It is the general belief in Habana that dozens of 
Americans occupy cells in the military prisons in the eastern part of the 
island, and have been there for months past, without a hearing of any 
kind. In this contemptuous manner does Captain-General Weyler 
regard and treat Americans generally. 

My statements of outrages perpetrated on the peasantry of Cuba by 
the officers of the Spanish army, and Colonel Melquizo in particular, 
are susceptible of the clearest and most conclusive proof, while on the 
other hand they are, I am convinced, only the merest hints of the 
dreadful state of affairs which really exists in Cuba. Were it possible 
to relieve some of the most important and highly respected men in the 
Island of Cuba from the fear of revengeful punishment by the Span- 
iards, I would give the names of the men of the highest standing and 
wealth, who have witnessed every one of the horrors to which I have 
referred in my press dispatches. 

VICTIMS OF THE "BUTCHER." 

Some of the cases to which I have referred are as follows: 
These men were shot without the slightest pretense at a trial near 
Campo Florida, near Habana: Domingo Lumones, Ramon Castellinos, 
Manuel Martinez, Jose Cejas, Jesus Ochoa Rodriguez, Joaquin Merina, 
Bargarito Zarzas, Eleno Guerra, Marguerite Verole, Basilio Rubiro, 
M. V. Collina, Florencio Rabelli, Benigno Galloso and son, Pedro Car- 
denas, his wife, Julia, and another woman named Maria Luiz; Apolo 
Camaronas, Inocento Rabell, Eduardo Sardeues, Cruse Ferrer, Abelardo 
Cartaya, Martin Diaz and son, Francisco Ferrer, Leonardo Llerena, 
Caridad Roys, Luz Guiterrez and son, and many others. 

I might cite by name a list of men and women which would cover 
many pages of this statement, all of whom were murdered by the 
Spanish troops without the slightest excuse, other than the unproved 
belief that they were Cuban sympathizers. It should be remembered 
that all these to whom I refer were noncombatants — peaceful white 
citizens engaged in following their daily callings when ruthlessly 
assassinated by the heartless men under Captain- General Weyler. 
Such murders are occurring daily, almost hourly, throughout the 
island. Weyler absolutely denies that these men are murdered, and 
asserts that they are killed in battle. 

OFFERED TO PROVE HIS STORIES. 

I personally offered to prove to the Captain-General that if his officers 
report that these deaths are the regular casualties of battle their 
reports are false. I offered to take him or any reliable man whom he 
might designate and who should not be known as a Spanish official to 
the districts where these brutal killings occurred and bring him in 
contact with men who saw the executions, who knew that the victims 
were not soldiers in the army of the Cuban Republic, had never borne 
arms, and were not intending to bear arms; that they were peaceful 
farmers and farm laborers who, at the time they were murdered, were 
pursuing the peaceful callings of their inoffensive lives. 

It was also called to my attention and proved that Captain-General 
Weyler was at the time I left Habana engaged in equipping his men 
with brass-tipped bullets, contrary to the convention signed at Geneva 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 335 

by Spain and all other civilized nations. Thus, he violates the law of 
nations in the conduct of his warfare. After this bullet enters the 
body the brass tip spreads, mutilating flesh, tissues, and bones, and 
being likely to cause blood poisoning. These bullets I have myself seen. 
Forty-eight hours before leaving Habana I wrote a farewell letter to 
Captain-General Weyler, in which I informed him of the monstrous 
conduct of his officers in the field and concluded with this language: 

You still have time to order my arrest. I invite you to do so, and guarantee that 
an iuvestigatiou shall he made, tbo result of which will prove you to be the most 
barbarous military savage the world has ever known. 

The Captain -General ignored such a vigorously worded challenge as 
that. In the letter I described to him the conduct of Colonel Melquizo's 
command while on the march from Jiquiabo to Minas. The soldiers 
were in town of Jiquiabo. 

CONDUCT OF SPANISH TROOPS. 

From an eyewitness, a man of the highest standing in Cuba, who 
was present that night, I gathered the following information: 

There was not a morsel of food in the town that had not been confis- 
cated by Melquizo's men. Every food animal and fowl had been killed 
and the people were compelled to appeal to the soldiers for sufficient 
food to drive away hunger. The women of Jiquiabo were in a state 
of terror bordering upon insanity because of the infamous conduct of 
the soldiers toward them. This conduct aroused the indignation of the 
men of the town and they appealed to Melquizo in person for protection 
for the women. 

. His reply was that no loyal Spanish woman would refuse a Spanish 
soldier anything, and he presumed the women of Jiquiabo were loyal 
Spanish subjects. An instance was related by my informant of two 
soldiers entering a hut where they found a woman alone. They first 
spoke to her in such language as no good woman would listen to. 
Finally they attacked her. She secured a knife and fought them off as 
best she could until, when her strength was almost exhausted, she 
broke away from them and ran into the field. The men followed her 
and, realizing that the thought of escape was hopeless, the poor woman 
drove a knife into her breast and within a few minutes was a corpse. 
The name of this woman was Maria Garmuza. 

This is only one of dozens of similar cases that have been reported 
to me. My information is of the most reliable kind and, were a proper 
investigation made, I could prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

THE MILITARY SITUATION. 

As to the military situation on the island : Enough people in this 
country to command respect believe that the Spaniards represent the 
only real army in Cuba from a soldier's point of view, and that the army 
of the Cuban Eepublic is composed of mere wandering bands of destroy- 
ing outlaws led by men who respect and are subject to no law whatever. 
This is untrue. The Spaniards are in point of numbers superior to 
their opponents, but the leaders of the army of the Eepublic have 
exhibited superior brains, courage, and military genius. 

Landing on the island with only a small following a year ago last 
February Generals Gomez and Maceo have now under their command 
in the neighborhood of 100,000 men, whose numbers would be very 
largely increased if the men who desire to join them could pass through 



336 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

the Spanish lines. The Republic is in possession of almost the whole 
of the interior of the island. There is scarcely a town that they have 
not attacked and occupied. 

To do this they have been compelled to drive the Spanish garrisons 
out of the cities, and they have done it most successfully whenever it 
has been attempted. The only portions of Cuba which the Spaniards 
have managed to hold are the capital, Habana, and other towns on the 
seacoast, where they have been favored with the protection ot the 
Spanish gunboats. With their men as well armed as are the Span- 
iards the Cubans could unquestionably overcome that advantage and 
hold the entire island against any force Spain might send against them. 
Even as it is the Cubans now menance the capital. General Gomez, 
with nearly 30,000 men, is marching westward and has reached a point 
in Mantanzas close enough to the city of Habana to cause the authori- 
ties great trepidation. 

HABANA CAN BE TAKEN. 

The capital is in almost a defenseless condition against a land attack, 
the Captain-General having sent nearly all of his available forces to the 
Province of Pinar del Rio to reinforce the trocha which he has estab- 
lished from the northern to the southern coast of the island. The 
fortress at Cabanas and the fortress of Santa Clara, which is situated 
in the city of Habana to the west of the harbor, might prove quite 
effectual against an attack by sea, but would, in the opinion of military 
men whom I have interviewed in Habana, prove totally inadequate to 
defend the city from an invasion on the land side. The only protection 
the capital has from an attack by land are a few insignificant stockade 
forts erected around the outskirts and garrisoned by poorly equipped, 
undrilled, half starved volunteers, who, during the hours when they are 
off duty, may be seen in the streets of Habana asking alms of citizens 
like ordinary beggars. 

It seems incredible that such men would succeed in holding Habana 
against an attack by such fighters as the Cubans under General 
Gomez have on more than one occasion proven themselves to be. In 
a march of over 500 miles, which the commander in chief of the Cuban 
army has made since he left Puerto Principe on his second invasion, 
be has not had a battle nor even a skirmish with the Spaniards, who 
have persistently avoided a trial of strength. The march has been 
made without the loss of a single man on either side and, incidentally, 
hundreds of peasants have swelled the ranks of the Cuban army by 
enlisting under General Gomez. 

In Pinar del Rio Province General Maceo is commander of the situa- 
tion. He has a comparatively small force, consisting, I have been told, 
of not over 5,000 men, who, however, are well-trained fighters and 
splendidly equipped with arms and ammunition. On the trocha, it was 
reported to me, there are over 40,000 Spanish soldiers, against which 
body of men flying columns of Spaniards, consisting of from 1,500 to 
5,000 soldiers each, are attempting to drive Maceo's troops. 

GENERAL MACEO'S VICTORIES. 

They find it impossible, however, to get Maceo into a position from 
which he can not escape, and whenever he has met a force of Spaniards 
in battle he has invariably succeeded in defeating his enemies. For 
proof of this, his battles with Alphonso XIII Battalion and with 
the force under General Suarez Inclan at the battle of Cacarajicara 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 337 

may be cited. After ten hours of fighting Maceo drove Colonel Dubos 
and the Alphonso XIII Battalion back to the seacoast, where they were 
compelled to take refuge on board the gunboat Alerta. The Spanish 
loss at this engagement was nearly 1,000, while General Maceo suffered 
a loss of not more than 200. 

At Cacarajicara, Maceo led Inclan into a trap and drove him back to 
Bahia Honda with great loss. This appears to be the fate of the flying 
columns that are sent after Maceo, while on the other hand hundreds 
of Spaniards on the trocha are being exterminated daily by yellow fever 
and other diseases. 

The death rate is so high on the trocha that the supply of Spanish 
soldiers to take the places of those who have succumbed to disease is 
exhausted, and General Weyler has been driven to the extremity of 
calling upon the volunteers from Habana to reinforce the line. At the 
time I left Habana the Captain-General had attempted to make a draft 
on the volunteers to go to the trocha, and these young men (who corre- 
spond to the State militia in this country) were in open rebellion against 
his order. The position they assumed was that it was their duty to 
guard the banks and public buildings of Habana in addition to doing 
guard duty generally around the city and its outskirts, and that neither 
General Weyler nor any other commander had authority to order them 
into the field. 

CUBANS IN GOOD CONDITION. 

The Cubans are in a position to maintain the present state of affairs 
for the next twenty years if Spain can find resources to keep up her 
end of the war for that length of time. Up in the mountains the lead- 
ers of the army of the Bepublic have established ranches, where men 
are engaged in breeding and raising cattle for food purposes. The 
raising of vegetables is also encouraged by the Cuban commanders, and 
in addition to this means of subsistence they have the native food plants 
that grow in wild profusion all over the island. 

From this it will be readily understood that no matter how long the 
war should last, or how much privation they should suffer in other 
directions, the Republican army will never suffer dangerously from 
lack of food. As the Cubans are in a position to stop all farming 
except such as they indulge in themselves, the Spaniards will presently 
find that their own shortage of food is a great drawback to their cam- 
paign, and they will be compelled to resort to importing their rations 
from the United States, Spain, or some other country. 

The Cubans have been accused of incendiarism in a criminal sense 
because they have destroyed sugar cane, tobacco, mills, and plantations. 
They insist that they should not be regarded as criminals, but that the 
orders which the commanders issued for the destruction of the island 
were justifiable war measures. 

DESTROYED WITH OWNERS' CONSENT. 

I have personal knowledge that in a great many cases the plantations 
have been destroyed with the consent of the owners. In fact, a great 
number of owners of plantations that have been destroyed informed 
me personally that they had invited the Cubans to do so because they 
did not want to grind their cane and thereby supply revenues to the 
Spanish Government. The fact that wealthy men cherish such hostility 
to Spain and are ready to help the Cubans in their fight should be suffi- 
cient refutation of the charge that the war for Cuban freedom is only 
backed by the ignorant classes and negroes. 
22 



538 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

I found that nearly three-fifths of the population of the island were 
either actively engaged in the war on the Cuban side or that the revo- 
lution enjoyed their active sympathy and support. Of course, these 
men dare not utter their sentiments openly, but they have willingly 
ruined themselves to aid the cause, and to those whom they can trust 
not to betray them they are not in the least backward in expresing 
their views. 



Respectfully submitted. 



Frederick W. Lawrence. 



May 18, 1896. 



STATEMENT OF REV. A. J. DIAZ. 



A. J. Diaz was duly sworn. 
By Senator Morgan : 

Q. What is your name? — A. A. J. Diaz. 

Q. What is your age 1 ? A. Forty years. 

Q. Where were you born? — A. I was born in the city of Guanabacoa. 

Q. How far is that from Habana? — A. About 2 or 3 miles. 

Q. Where were you educated? — A. I was educated partly in the 
Island of Cuba and partly in the United States. 

Q. At what school? — A. First I was at the institute, as we call it, in 
Habana, then went to the university in flabana. 

Q. When you came here where did you go? — A. When I came here 
I was educated by Dr. Alexander Hunter, of New York, a private 
teacher. 

Q. Educated in your profession as a doctor of medicine? — A. No, 
sir; as a minister. 

Q. Well, were you ever educated as a doctor of medicine? — A. Yes, 
sir ; I was educated in Habana. 

Q. Did you get your degree? — A. Yes, sir; I got my degree there, 
and my diploma as a doctor has been registered here in the State of 
Georgia, too. 

Q. Did you commence practicing your profession in Cuba? — A. Yery 
little. At that time I was quite young, and the last revolution was 
started, and then 1 joined myself in that revolutionary army. 

Q. Who did you serve under? — A. I served with the Cuban party. 

Q. Under whose command? — A. Under the command of Julio Funes. 

Q. How long did you serve in that army? — A. I served in that army 
for nearly two years. 

Q. Did you have any rank? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What was it? — A. I was appointed by them as a captain. 

Q. Did you have a company under your command? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When that war closed, what became of you? — A. Before the war 
closed I was appointed to find some place for our people. We knew 
very well if they got hold of the Cubans they would kill them. Know- 
ing that, I threw myself into the sea, drifting on a log, in the hope of 
reaching some place of security, but the current was strong and drove 
us away. That was in the nighttime, and the next day we found our- 
selves in a vessel which picked us up. 

Q. Where did they take you to?— A. They transferred us to a 
schooner that was bound to New York, and I went to the city of New 
York. 

Q. How long did you remain in New York? — A. I remained in New 
York for nearly five or six years. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 339 

Q. What were you doing while you were there 1 ? — A. At first I was 
employed in the cigar business. Then I commenced to read to the fac- 
tories there, employed as a reader, and then I commenced to do some 
missionary work. 

Q. You became a minister? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What church did you join 1 ? — A. The Baptist Church. 

Q. Did you join that church in New York? — A. No, sir. 

By Senator Davis : 
Q. Are you now an ordained minister of the Baptist Church? — A. 
Yes, sir. 
Q. How long have you been so? — A. For nearly six years. 

By Senator Morgan: 

Q. Where were you ordained? — A. I was ordained in the city of Key 
West, Fla. 

Q. You belong, then, to the Southern Baptist Church? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. After you were ordained did you return to Cuba? — A. Yes, sir; I 
returned for that purpose to the city of Key West. I was called by 
the council to the city of Key West, and was ordained there and 
returned the next week. 

Q. Then I suppose you became a missionary of the Southern Baptist 
Board to Cuba? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Well, when you got to Cuba did you establish a church there? — 
A. The church had been already established. 

Q. And you were appointed to it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What progress have you made in your denominational growth 
there? — A. Very good. 

Q. About how many communicants have you there? — A. I have about 
2,700 who have been baptized in the last eight years. 

Q. In the city of Habana? — A. Yes; and I organized a Baptist hospi- 
tal for the poor. I organized seven free schools, where we have over 
1,500 children; we educate them; and also have a cemetery. We can 
not bury our Protestant people in the Catholic cemetery. They do not 
allow us to bury them there. 

By Senator Davis: 

Q. In whose name is the title to all this property? — A. In the name 
of Dr. Tichenor, the corresponding secretary of the Home Mission 
Board. 

Q. He holds it as trustee for the mission board? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. Where does Dr. Tichenor belong? — A. In Atlanta, Ga. 

Q. What would be about the value of that property you have in 
Habana? — A. The church itself is worth about $140,000. It is a very 
nice piece of property. The hospital we have is worth about 120,000, 
and the cemetery — well, we can not say what it is worth, but it brings to 
the board an income of $6,000 or $7,000 a year. 

Q. You have property, then, in San Miguel, also belonging to the 
church? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is the value of that?— A. About $2,000. 

Q. How many churches have you organized outside of San Miguel 
and outside of Habana in the country? — A. We have different missions, 
but never organized different churches. We have missions at different 
places. A preacher will go to one for one or two months for a meeting 
and then move away to another. 



340 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. How many ministers are employed in the Baptist denomination? — 
A. Abont 24 missionaries. 

Q. Are there any of those remaining in Cuba now, or have they 
left? — A. None remain except the women mission aries. 

Q. The men have all had to leave? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Why have they had to leave? — A. Well, they have been perse- 
cuted in one way or another by the Government, and have had to leave. 

Q. They have all left? — A. They have all left and come to the United 
States. 

Q. You speak of free schools you have established there; are there 
any free schools within your knowledge in Cuba sustained by the 
Spanish Government? — A. Yes, there are some. 

Q. How many? — A. A great many, but kept in a very bad condition; 
they do not teach anything. 

Q. Are they under ecclesiastical control ?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. The Catholic Church?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Who supplies the funds? — A. The Government. 

Q. 1 was reading the other day, from a Spanish author, a statement 
to the effect that the annual taxes upon the people for the support of 
the Catholic Church in Cuba amounted to about $600,000. Is that 
correct? — A. I think it is more than that. I think it is about $1,500,000 
or $2,000,000. 

Q. This book I was reading from was written ten or fifteen years 
ago? — A. The bishop of Habana gets about $18,000 a year. 

Q. And the archbishop how much ? — A. He gets about the same. 

Q. The archbishop of Cuba and the bishop of Habana get about 
$18,000 each?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Well, have you been much over the country in Cuba? — A. Yes, 
sir; I have been in a great number of places. 

Q. When did this war that is existing now in Cuba commence? — A. 
It broke out about the 29th of February, 1895. 

Q. After that war broke out were you visiting over the Island of 
Cuba in different places? — A. Yes, sir; in behalf of the missions. 
When the war broke out I did not know exactly what to do. As a cap- 
tain of the army on one side, and as a minister of the gospel on the 
other side, I was a little troubled myself, but I concluded to take no 
part in the insurrection, but just to help both parties, and then I organ- 
ized what we call a White Cross Society. It is a society based on the 
Red Cross Society of Geneva, for the purpose of treating both sides. 

Q. You mean, to assist them medically and charitably? — A. Yes, sir; 
and at the same time I sent a letter to President Cleveland to notify 
him that we were going to do that kind of work, and Mr. Gresham 
answered the letter saying that they had nothing to do with the matter, 
but were very much pleased with that thought and encouraged us, but 
they said they had nothing to do with the Geneva Cross. So our Gov- 
ernment was notified that we were going to take part in that movement 
for a sanitary purpose. 

Q. Well, the Spanish Government, then, became one of the parties to 
the Red Cross Society; that is, to the treaty by which they had certain 
rights? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And you were not violating any public law by organizing that 
society? — A. No, sir; nor private either. 

Q. And you say you had determined not to take part with either 
party in the political struggle that was going on there? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have you kept to that resolution faithlully? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And you have not taken part? — A. I have not taken part on either 
side. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



341 



Q. In anyway? — A. In any way; just helping the wounded and sick, 
that is all. 

Q. Well, did yon visit the United States recently before you were 
expelled? — A. Well, I generally visit the United States once or twice 
a year. I must come to the Southern Baptist Convention when they 
have a meeting, and give my report, and then they have some associa- 
tion or State convention, and then they call me. So I came to the 
United States last year twice or three times, to the Southern Baptist 
Convention which met in Washington, to the Florida State conven- 
tion, and to the Home Mission Board's meeting. 

Q. Well, both visits you made were for the purpose of attending 
Baptist conventions? — A. Yes, sir; that is all. 

Q. You did not come here on a political mission? — A. No, sir. 

Q. And had nothing to do with politics or with the war? — A. Noth- 
ing to do with it. 

Q. What did you do as a member of this sanitary corps, as a phy- 
sician, in treating the sick and wounded of both parties? — A. We made 
a by-law and we gave that by-law to the Government of Spain in order 
that they might approve it, and so they did. They approved it, and 
the second article says we have the right to constitute neutral camps 
in order to just take care of the sick and wounded; and while Mr. 
Campos was there everything was all right, because Mr. Campos con- 
ducted the warfare in a civilized way, and we had no trouble about 
it. We organized about forty delegations to take care of all sick and 
wounded. We have treated there about 2,000 Spanish soldiers, but as 
soon as Mr. Weyler came he ordered us to stop— not to take care of the 
insurgents by any means, only take Spanish troops, who were the only 
ones we had any right to take care of. 

Q. Then did you cease to take care of the insurgents? — A. Yes, sir; 
I did not want to break any law, right or wrong. I did not want to 
interfere with any of them. 

Q. Now, as a White Cross director, did you have a right to go into 
the ranks of the enemy? — A. Yes, cross the lines any time I pleased. 

Q. You went out to the camp of the rebels? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you make frequent visits to them? — A. Not frequent visits, 
but when I went to inspect a delegation sometimes I found them in my 
way. Sometimes, as military operations required, they stopped me and 
kept me for two or three or four days, and then I stopped there; and 
if they had something to do in the medical line 1 did it — made surgical 
operations. 

Q. You are a surgeon? — A. I am a surgeon; yes, sir. 

Q. Now, these delegations you speak of, I suppose they were scat- 
tered about through Cuba? — A. Yes, sir; in the Province of Pinar del 
Kio, the Province of Habana, and provinces of Matanzas and Santa 
Clara. 

Q. How many delegations did you have in all? — A. Nearly 40. 

Q. And how mauy people would be engaged in each delegation? — A. 
About two or three directors and several nurses. Sometimes they have 
women. 

Q. Who supported these delegations? — A. We supported them. 

Q. Do you mean the White Cross? — A. Yes, sir; the White Cross 
Society. 

Q. Where did you get the money to do it with? — A. Part I collected 
from the members of the church and part we got from contributions of 
the people. 

Q. Did the Spanish Government contribute anything to it? — A. No, 
sir; never contributed a cent. 



342 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Now, then, it was in visiting these delegations about through the 
different parts of Cuba that you had the opportunity to see what was 
going on in both armies? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Now, you visited the rebel army — I call it that— the Cuban army 
in Piiiar del Rio? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When did you go there the last time? — A. The last time I was in 
Pinar del Rio was on the 13th of March. [Reading from paper.] 

I went to the town of Caimito for the purpose of leaving medicines, handages, 
etc. On arriving there I was informed that there were two wounded children at the 
farm known as Saladriga. I went to their assistance. 

Q. Now, just stop right there, because I am going to read that paper 
over to you presently. I am getting at preliminary facts. When you 
were at Pinar del Rio did you see Maceo? — A. I saw Valdespino, and 
Maceo also. 

Q. About how many troops did Maceo have with him? — A. Well, 
really, I could not tell you because of the way they appeared; the way 
they came was an immense crowd of people all riding on horseback. It 
was a large crowd. I could not exactly tell how many. 

Q. You had no statement of the number? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Well, would you say it was a strong army? — A. Very strong. 

Q. Did he have any artillery with him? — A. I did not see any. 

Q. How were they armed? — A. A great many of them were well 
armed and the balance of them all had the machete. 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. Would you say he had some thousands of men under his command 
or only a few hundreds? Give some idea. — A. Oh, I think he had some 
seven or eight thousand men. 

Q. You saw them? — A. Yes, sir; I saw them. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. Did he have a permanent camp there? — A. Well, they were mov- 
ing around. Sometimes they stay in one place fifteen or twenty days 
and then move to another. 

Q. Well, when you saw him had he made the attack on the city of 
Pinar del Rio? — A. No, sir; he was just going in the direction. 

Q. And that fight occurred afterwards? — A. Afterwards; yes, sir. 

Q. What did you gather to be the result of the fight he had in Pinar 
del Rio; what did you find out or gather to be the result of it? — A. 
Well, I asked them, you know, what they intended to do in Pinar del 
Rio, and they said they were just going on, take possession of the prin- 
cipal towns, and Maceo was appointed as commander of that Province. 

Q. He was assigned in command of the Province of Pinar del Rio 
and is there now? — A. Yes; he is there. 

Q. Well, after that was over they had other battles — that of Bahia- 
honda? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you know anything about that battle? — A. It was the one 
where the Alphonse XII Regiment was destroyed. It is reported the 
whole regiment, about 1,000 soldiers, were destroyed, and but 14 or 15 
were left. They threw themselves into the water and got a small boat 
and went out in the bay, and the current brought them to the city of 
Habana, which is about 00 miles from that place. 

Q. Do you think your information about that is correct, that the 
whole Spanish battalion was destroyed? — A. Yes, sir. 

By 'Senator Davis : 
Q. Was it a battalion? — A. Yes, sir; a battalion. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 343 

By Senator Morgan: 

Q. Did Maceo capture Piiiar del Rio? — A. I do not know; I heard 
that. 

Q. How long did he hold it! — A. I presume he held it about two or 
three days. 

Q. Was this tight you tell about before or after the capture? — A. I 
think it was before the capture. I know that is true because of this: 
There was published in the paper that the colonel will be tried by court- 
martial because he did not go to the point where the regiment was. 

Q. That is another column? — A. That is another column; yes, sir. 

Q. Did you see Gomez when you were out there? When did you see 
him last? — A. About two months ago. 

Q. Where did you see him ? — A. I saw him in the Province of Habana. 

Q. How far from the city of Habana? — A. I saw him in Bainoa. 

Q. How far from Habana? — A. About 35 miles. 

Q. Did he have his forces with him? — A. Yes, sir; an immense force. 

Q. How many thousands do you suppose ? — A. I think he had about 
10,000 men. 

Q. What was the condition of his health? — A. Pretty good. He had 
only a little abscess on one of his legs from an old wound, but he has 
recovered from that and is all right. 

Q. He is an old man, is he? — A. He is an old man, about 72 years of 
age. 

Q. Did you talk with him? — A. Yes, sir; he asked me several ques- 
tions and I answered. 

Q. Did you tell him about the condition of the Spanish forces and 
all that? — A. No, sir; he knew he had no right to ask such questions 
as that. 

Q. What did you think of the appearance of his army; did they 
look as if they were strong? — A. Very strong. 

Q. Well armed? — A. Well armed and in good health. 

Q. Have you been personally with any other army in Cuba? — A. 
Yes, sir; Mr. Aguirre's. 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. When ? — A. Just two weeks before they put me in prison. 

Q. When did you leave Cuba? Give me the date. — A. I think it was 
before the 1st of May. 

Q. How long before? — A. Just a day or two. 

Q. Now, how long was it before you were arrested that you saw the 
force of Aguirre you mentioned? — A. Fifteen days. 

By Senator Morgan: 

Q. Where did you find Aguirre? — A. They found me. I was down 
there attending a man. While I was amputating his arm the insurgent 
forces came around the little tent I had for that purpose, and while I 
was operating I found myself among the insurgents, and he came 
there and just looked at what I had been doing, and kept every- 
body away and did not molest us at all. 

A. You were not in his camp, then ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Did you talk with Aguirre? — A. After I got through with the 
operation; yes, sir. 

Q. Did he speak of his affairs? — A. Yes, sir; and I knew partially 
of them down there. 

Q. Y r ou knew the people? — A. Very well; a great many of them had 
been in my congregation. 



344 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Now, what class of people did that army consist of? — A. The best 
class of young men in Habana, generally. 

Q. Do you mean tbe Province of Habana? — A. No; the city. 

Q. Aguirre's command consists mostly of city boys, does it? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. How many were there? — A. He had at that time about 2,000; that 
was his escort. 

Q. He had others? — A. Oh, yes. He had in the province 10,000 or 
15,000 men, scattered all over the Province of Habana in different 
camps. 

Q. Now, what kind of people did the army of Maceo appear to be? — 
A. Very fine people, too; white people; doctors, lawyers, druggists. 

Q. Intelligent people? — A. Intelligent people. 

By Senator Davis: 

Q. What kind of people were the private soldiers in Maceo's army? — 
A. Well, they have some colored people, too — many — and they have 
some of these intelligent people as private soldiers, a great many of 
them people who do not want any rank ; just wanted to be soldiers, just 
to do that in the democratic line to encourage others. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. Now, these people you saw in Gomez's army, did they appear to be 
men who were farmers and persons living in the country — respectable 
people? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. White people? — A. Yes, sir; as well as negroes. 

Q. Was that the case in Aguirre's army, too? — A. Well, Aguirre had 
more white people. 

By Senator DAVIS: 

Q. What proportion of negroes and white in Maceo's army? — 
A. Well, one third negroes. 

Q. Are the negroes and whites in separate companies and regiments, 
or are they all mixed up together? — A. Well, I do not know very 
well, but, as I say, they mingled. 

Q. In the same organization? — A. The same organization. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. Now, in traveling there, did you go to Oubitos?— A. No, sir; my 
organization did not reach as far as that. 

Q. How far is that from Habana? — A. Cubitos is in the central part 
of the island. It is in the Province of Oamaguay. 

Q. It is up in the mountains, is it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you know Mr. Cisneros? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you know where he was ? — A. Yes, sir ; I know where he was. 
Cisneros has about 20 of the principal men of the city of Habana with 
him. I inquired for him, and was told he was at that place, Cubitos. 

Q. That is his capital? — A. That is his capital. 

Q. Is that a place of difficult access? — A. Very difficult. Bartolo 
Masso is the general up there, with about 10,000 men to protect the 
government. 

Q. Now, I understand that the military arrangement among the 
Cubans is that a general is assigned to certain provinces? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Maceo to Pinar del Rio? — A. Yes, sir. Aguirre to Habana, San- 
chez to Santa Clara, Roloff to Santo Espiritu, and Calisto in Camaguay ; 
and then in the eastern part of the island is Jose Maceo. 

Oj. So that is the military disposition? — A. Yes, sir; men command 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 345 

generally in the province, and then they have subdivisions. They 
have, for instance, brigades in each province. 

By Senator Davis: 

Q. Gomez is commander in chief over all? — A. Yes, sir. 
By Senator Morgan : 

Q. And that is the military organization? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Let us know something about the civil organization. Did you 
meet any civil officers ? — A. Yes, sir; Mr. Portuondo. 

Q. What is his office 1 ? — A. He is secretary of the interior. 

Q. He belongs to the general government of the Cuban Republic?— 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. I want you to speak of the local officers — the prefects and sub- 
prefects. Do you know anything about them? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is a prefect? — A. He is the man in charge to find supplies 
for the families of insurgents in every place there. 

Q. Sort of a commissary? — A. Yes, sir; if the families need some- 
thing to eat, for instance, he brings food, cattle, etc. 

Q. Takes care of the families of the men in the army? — A. Yes, sir; 
and if the men are sick or wounded the prefects take care of them. 

Q. They take care of the sick and wounded, and subprefects have 
smaller districts? — A. They have smaller districts. 

Q. Now, who are the tax collectors there? — A. There are tax col- 
lectors, too; I know, personally, Mr. Menocal. 

Q. A cousin of our Menocal here? — A. A brother, I think. 

Q. Is he a tax collector? — A. Yes; they divide themselves into dif- 
ferent places and collect all the revenue. 

Q. Do they collect revenue from the people? — A. Oh, yes. Some- 
times they have no place to put the money. Sometmes Gomez has 
mules loaded with money — going from one place to another with money. 

By Senator Davis : 
Q. Do they collect supplies in kind? — A. The prefects do, but these 
are the tax collectors. 

By Senator Morgan : 
Q. Do the people of Cuba voluntarily and freely pay taxes to the 
Cuban government, or are they forced to do it? — A. No, sir; they freely 
do it. They pay taxes where the Cubans have no control over it. 

By Senator Davis : 
Q. Now, over this territory, have the Spanish any tax collectors? — 
A. Not one. 

By Senator Morgan: 
Q. Have they any judges? — A. Not one. 

By Senator Davis : 
Q. Any civil officers at all ? — A. No. In the larger towns is the only 
place. In the smaller places they have nothing of the kind — no mayors, 
no aldermen.- 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. Do these various civil officers have offices in any one place, or are 
they roving around? — A. No; they are roving around. 

Q. Have they established headquarters? — A. Well, sometimes they 
do for one, two, or three months, and then they move around. That 
depends on the persecution of the Spanish. 



346 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. Do they keep records or written accounts? — A. Yes, sir. 
By Senator Morgan: 

Q. Now, how are the mass of the Cuban army received by the popu- 
lation living in the towns in the country? Are they received cordially 
or as enemies? — A. Every time they approach any town all the people 
come out with flags and welcome them. That is natural. The majority 
of those boys belong in those cities. They can not be received in any 
other way. 

Q. How do they receive the Spanish, on the other hand? — A. Well, 
there is great excitement when the Spanish troops approach the cities. 
The people are afraid, and they do not feel safe, because they know the 
Spanish come in and sack the towns and break the houses and take 
possession of them, and violate women, and do horrible things. Of 
course, the people are scared. The soldiers take possession. I saw 
this case in Managua; soldiers took possession of a house; the ladies 
screamed out, and the soldiers commenced to search the bureaus and 
everything there, and the men came and reported that there were some 
soldiers sacking that house, and the men said, " I can not say a word 
about it, because they are all officers." 

Q. Did you see this yourself? — A. I saw that myself; I was there. 

Q. Did they offer any violence to women? — A. Well, the women ran 
away. I do not know what became of them. I was sitting there with 
my brother in the drug store when these things occurred. 

Q. Now, you have described how the armies of both contending par- 
ties are received by the people of the country. — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is your description of that true, as far as you know? Without 
any specification, is it true generally? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. It is generally true? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you know of a town or village in Cuba where you could say 
that the people were hostile to the Cuban cause ¥ — A. Natives ? 

Q. Yes. — A. Not one. The whole country has risen up in arms — 
men, women, and children. 

Q. So you regard the attitude or situation with the Cuban people as 
being one of general hostility to Spain? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And is that hostility intense? — A. Past expression. One day I 
heard General Kui say, "Everything here is against us. The air we 
breathe is against the Spanish people in Cuba." 

Q. How do these Cuban armies maintain themselves; upon what 
do they subsist, and how do they get it? — A. Well, they use goats and 
chickens and all the tropical fruits, and yams and sweet potatoes, 
and things that grow wild, and in some places farmers plant for the 
insurgents; so they never trouble themselves about what to eat. 

Q. They have an abundance? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long do you think the country can stand that? Will it wear 
out, and after a while the people starve? — A. No; people who live in 
the country are all right. They can stay therefor twenty years if they 
want to, with plenty to eat. Now, the misery is among the people of 
the cities. 

Q. Why? — A. Because they have no resources. They have no money 
or anything, and insurgents are not allowed to grow anything in cities 
where the Spanish troops are, and they have nothing to eat. 

Q. They are in a starving condition? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. About the destruction of the crops there; has it been very exten- 
sive — that is, the sugar cane? — A. Very. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 347 

Q. Is the Cuban army alone responsible for that destruction 1 ? — A. 
Not the Cuban army alone. The Spaniards do that, too. They set on 
fire the sugar plantations of Mr. Delgado and others. Part of the city 
of Managua has been destroj^ed by the Cubans and the other part has 
been destroyed by the Spanish troops. 

Q. What for?— A. Well, the mayor of that town, Mr. Christo, is a 
lawyer. They had a battle, and 75 houses were burned, and in a month 
or two Mr. Christo, the mayor, joined the rebels; and he is a wealthy 
man, for he has different houses and plantations, and so forth, down 
there. As soon as he went with the rebel army the Spanish troops set 
on fire all the houses owned by him. So that part is destroyed by the 
Spaniards and part by the Cubans. 

Q. Is sugar cane an element of subsistence among the Cubans and 
their horses? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Now, I want to ask you something about the condition of this Span- 
ish army and Cuban army as to diseases. You have yellow fever in 
Cuba? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Does it attack the Cubans? — A. No, sir; not a bit. 

Q. Why not? — A. Because they are acclimated. 

Q. Does it attack the Spaniards? — A. Oh, yes; fearfully. 

Q. Now, take a body of 1,000 soldiers in the season, how many would 
you expect to find sick out of that number? — A. Nearly all of them. 

Q. As much as that? — A. Yes; nearly all of them. Nearly all get 
sick and about 50 or 60 per cent wdl die. 

Q. You do not mean they all get yellow fever? — A. Yes; that is the 
principal thing, and dysentery. 

Q. And what else? — A. Ulcers. 

Q. I wish you would describe those ulcers. Are they syphilitic? — A. 
Yes, sir; in many cases they are syphilitic. 

Q. How is the large majority of cases; is that so? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. State what is the extent of that disease among the Spanish sol- 
diers. — A. Well, about 60 or 70 per cent. 

Q. They get sick in that way? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. Infected with syphilis? — A. Yes, sir; but they are corrupt people, 
you know. 

Q. Do they bring it with them from Spain or acquire it in the island ? — 
A. Well, they bring it from Spain and acquire it in the island, too, 
because this is the custom they have; they do not do it now. As soon 
as they landed they put their guns to one side to have a good time and 
hunt for women, and of course with that kind of women you know in 
what condition they are generally. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. What is your opinion as to the number of Spanish troops now in 
Cuba?— A. I think they have in Cuba only about 70,000 or 80,000 sol- 
diers. I do not think they have more than that. 

Q. How man v have come there since this war broke out? — A. Nearly 
150,000 to 180,000. 

Q. What has become of the balance of them? — A. Well, a great 
many of them have been killed, and many of them have joined the 
rebels. 

Q. Joined the rebels ? — A. A great many them ; yes, sir. 

Q. Well, how about those who have died in the hospitals from dis- 
ease? — A. Yes; some have died of disease. 

Q. What proportion of the people who have been lost — would you 



348 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

say that half or more than half have died of disease or battles? — A. 
Well, not many in battles; more of disease than of battles. The dif- 
ficulty with the Spanish soldiers is that when they are brought from 
Spain and reach Cuba they are not allowed to speak to anybody. They 
have a guard, and as soon as soldiers are landed they are sent to the 
interior in order that they shall not speak to anyone. The Spanish 
people in Spain deceive these young men — tell them they are going to 
fight negroes, etc. The officers are not real officers, but sergeants made 
captains and corporals and privates made lieutenants. That is the 
kind of soldiers they have in Cuba, showing they do not know what 
kind of men they are to meet. They are told that all the Cuban army 
is negroes, and here they find them white and hear hurrahing for free- 
dom and for republicanism, and say, "Well, I am a republican myself. 
If I had known that I would not fight against them." 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. Were you expelled from the island of Cuba? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Why? — A. By the Spanish authorities, Mr. Weyler. 

Q. When?— A. On the 30th day of last April. 

Q. What reason did he give for expelling you? — A. I do not know yet. 

Q. Did any of your fellow-missionaries leave about the same time? — 
A. They left before me. 

Q. How many of them? — A. Three ministers. 

Q. How many from all the missions? — A. The others, about six or 
seven. 

Q. Now, after you and the other missionaries and the ministers left 
what became of the church and hospital property? — A. All has been 
abandoned. 

Q. Do you know who has taken possession of it? — A. Yes; some of 
the members have taken possession of it. 

Q. Have the Spanish authorities taken possession of the church? — 
A. Not that I know of. 

Q. Have the other churches and denominations got hospitals in 
Cuba? — A. Yes; the Episcopalians have them. 

Q. Have they been disturbed? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Has the Episcopalian minister been disturbed ? — A. I do not know. 

Q. He left? — A. Oh, yes; he left. The general agent of the Ameri- 
can Bible Society, Dr. McKean, left the Island of Cuba, too. 

Q. Was he expelled ? — A. I do not know. They disappear ; that is 
all we know. 

Q. What is said to be called the capital of the insurgents? — A. 
Cubitos. 

Q. Is that the seat of government of the insurgents? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Who is the president? — A. Cisneros. 

Q. Where does he hold his office — perform his duties? — A. Eight 
there, in Cubitos. 

Q. For how long a time has he performed those duties at that place? — 
A. Well, I think for ten months. 

Q. Has he ever been disturbed or fled from the city since that time? — 
A. No, sir. 

Q. Has he a cabinet? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Who is the minister of foreign relations? — A. Mr. Palma, I think. 

Q. Who is the minister of the interior? — A. Mr. Portuondo. 

Q. Who is the minister of justice? — A. Well, I may know the name 
but do not recall it. 

Q. Well, is there a minister of justice there? — A. Oh, yes; I know 
they have a cabinet there. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 349 

Q. Any more ministers'? — A. Yes; they have two or three more. 

Q. Now, do those gentlemen, except Palma, live in Cubitos? — A. All 
there. 

Q. Performing their duties'? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have they ever been disturbed? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Have they a legislative assembly? — A. Well, they had one about 
a year ago when they appointed Cisneros. 

Q. Has there been any session since? — A. I do not know whether 
they have had any session recently. 

Q. Have they a printing press? — A. Yes; they have a printing-press 
there. I say they have, because I saw a paper that was published up 
tli ere. The name of the paper was Cuba. 

Q. Is it an organ of the insurgents? — A. Yes; it is an organ of the 
insurgents. 

Q. Is it printed regularly? — A. I do not know. I only saw a copy. 

By Senator Morgan : 
Q. Have they a post-office department? — A. Yes; a postmaster- 
general. 
Q. And postage stamps? — A. And postage stamps. 

By Senator Davis : 

Q. How do they carry the mail over the island? — A. Well, they have 
their own means to carry letters. 

Q. In cases of battles do the Spanish troops give quarter or do they 
take prisoners? — A. In a great many cases they do not give quarter. 

Q. How about the insurgents; do they give quarter or take prison- 
ers? — A. Yes; they give quarter and take prisoners and give them an 
invitation to join the rebel army. If they do not accept it they give 
them parole. 

Q. What do the Spaniards do with the prisoners they take? — A. Kill 
them. 

Q. Is that a universal practice? — A. Yes, sir; universal practice. 

Q. Do you mean to say the Spanish butcher their prisoners? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. Universally? — A. Universally; yes, sir. 

Q. Are any women fighting in the insurgent ranks? — A. No; they do 
not fight, but they are with the soldiers, because they are wives or 
relatives or something, and join the ranks. 

Q. What do the Spaniards do with the women when they catch 
them?— A. Kill them. 

Q. Do you mean to say they kill them the same as men ? — A. They 
kill them; yes, sir. 

Q. What do they do with the children ? — A. Kill them. 

Q. Do you mean that to the full extent of what you say, that they 
kill men, women, and children? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How do soldiers treat women when they catch them? — A. Oh, 
insult them. 

Q. Do you mean by insult them they ravish them ; do you know any- 
thing of that kind? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Now, these statements you have made impress me very seriously 
and I want to be certain. Am I to understand that in case of an 
engagement the Spanish troops give no quarter, and that either then 
or after the engagement they kill every insurgent, man, woman, and 
child? — A. Well, not the insurgents, because they never have that 
chance and could not. 

Q. No, not the insurgents, but I ask if the Spanish troops do that? — 



350 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

A. They do not do that to the insurgents, because the insurgents never 
allow them to do that; but the general rule is when they have a battle 
the insurgents retire and the Spanish troops come in, and any person 
they find in the neighborhood they kill— men, women, and children, non- 
combatants. 

By Senator Morgan : 

Q. When you were taken as a prisoner you were taken by General 
Weyler's order, were you— you and your brother? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. You were confined in a house"? — A. Yes, sir; we were isolated. 

Q. I know; but you were confined in a house? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long?— A. Eight days. 

Q. During that time were any charges at all presented against you f — 
A. No, sir; not one. 

Q. Did you demand charges'? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Well, are you an American citizen? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Fully naturalized? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Got your papers and all ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long ago did that take place? — A. About thirteen years. 

Q. And you have been known as an American citizen since you have 
been in Cuba? — A. Oh, yes. 

Q. Did Weyler allow you to have any communication with the Amer- 
ican consul? — A. No, sir. 

Q. He refused it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. You desired it and he refused ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And no charges were made against you? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Were you required to make a declaration? — A. Yes, sir; they 
asked me two or three different questions. 

Q. And after tbat, did they release you? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long after that? — A. Twenty-four hours, I think. 

Q. Then you were ordered to leave? — A. Yes, sir.; 

Q. Leaving on the next steamer?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And you brought your wife and family with you? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How many children have you? — A. Two children. 

Q. Do the Cubans get any arms and ammunition from the villages or 
people? — A. Yes; they get them from Habana. 

Q. How do they get them? — A. Exactly, I do not know the way they 
manage it, but I know they get all they need. I heard the people talk 
about that. 

Q. The people supply them, of course? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you know whether there is any order of the Spanish Govern- 
ment to prevent the landing of arms or munitions of war? — A. They do 
not allow any sale of arms in the city of Habana. You do not find in 
any store any rifles or any of those hunting guns. You do not find 
anything of that kind in the city of Habana. 

Q. The sale of them is prohibited? — A. Yes; as contraband of war. 
And now I hear the later report is they consider corn as a contraband 
of war, too. 

Q. Well, you raise corn in plenty in the iuterior of Cuba, do you 
not? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. flow many crops of corn can you raise in a year in the interior of 
Cuba? — A. Well, horses are contraband of war, too, and the people of 
Cuba can not have horses. They have to give all the horses to the 
Government as contraband of war; and now corn is a contraband of 
war, too. The trade of Habana has been wretched. They have no 
trade. All grocery stores are empty; nobody spends a single cent in 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. o51 

any store. They have no money, and the Spanish people have been 
going away from the Island of Cuba. 

Q. Do you have any paper money at all in Cuba? — A. No, sir; they 
have silver and copper and gold. I believe the Spanish people in Cuba — 
those in business — are all in favor of the rebellion, because if the Span- 
ish Government takes possession of the island again they will have to 
pay the last debt and this additional debt. They have to pay about 
$35,000 a day, and this is the interest of the debt; but they do not 
know how much the debt is. They call it $35,000 a day, and every 
day. They get it from the custom house. 

Senator Morgan. Now I will read this paper to you. 

Senator Morgan read the paper, as follows: 

To the Honorable Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, United 

States Senate. 

Dear Sir : On the 12th day of September, 1895, 1 received author- 
ity from the inspector general to organize and maintain sanitary dele- 
gations at different points throughout the island of Cuba. I have now 
in my possession the original copy of said certificate of permission, 
signed officially. 

The by-laws were approved on November 18, 1895, copy of which I 
hand you herewith. I would call special attention to article 2 of chapter 
1, by which it will be seen I was permitted to constitute neutral camps. 

I, with some other doctors and Christian people, some of whom were 
American citizens, organized the White Cross, in conformity with said 
by laws. 

While General Campos was in command the rules of civilized war- 
fare were strictly enforced by his orders. 

After General Weyler assumed command we were summoned before 
him and instructed not to treat or otherwise care for sick and wounded 
among the soldiers of the insurgents, as we had been permitted to do 
under the administration of General Campos. 

Since the time General Weyler has been in command we have treated 
about 700 Spanish soldiers, each case being reported to him, at a cost 
to us of about $5,000, and before he assumed command we had treated 
about 1,300 Spanish soldiers. 

During the time General Campos was in command our delegations 
treated the sick and wounded of both the insurgents and the Spanish 
alike. 

During the prosecution of this work 1 have been a great deal out on 
the fields and have had good opportunities of making observations of 
the practices and character of the warfare of both armies. 

I have seen the general order issued by Gen. Maximo Gomez, direct- 
ing tliat all prisoners captured from the Spanish army should be treated 
with proper consideration. That first they should be disarmed, then 
offered an opportunity to join the insurgent ranks. If they declined 
to do this voluntarily then they must be released without parole and 
escorted to some point of safety. The same order further directed that 
Spanish prisoners who were either sick or wounded should be nursed 
and carefully treated until well when, if they do not desire, voluntarily, 
to join the insurgent ranks, they must be released and conveyed under 
military escort to a point of safety. It was also ordered by General 
Gomez that no women should be molested or interfered with by any 
insurgent soldiers under penalty of death. 

Those entire general orders are now in force and have been since the 



352 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

beginning of the insurrection. They are very positive, and severe 
penalties are provided for their violation. 

From my personal observation I know these orders have been strictly 
enforced. I know of one instance where, in the town of Jamaica, an 
insurgent soldier violated these orders by laying his hands upon a 
woman with criminal intent. For this offense ho was ordered to be 
shot, and I saw his body after he had been executed. 

I have personal knowledge of this order in regard to the release of 
prisoners having been complied with. 

At Peralego I saw General Maceo return to General Campos, at Bal- 
lamo, about 150 prisoners, and at Camaguani I saw Eego return to the 
Spanish authorities 100 prisoners. 

I have also had opportunities for observing the methods of warfare 
and cruelties practiced by General Weyler. It is well known to the 
residents of Cuba that his record is one of cruelty and blood. I can 
substantiate the following incidents which have come under my own 
observation. 

At Menocol farm, near Managua, on the 3d day of February, 1896, 1 
was called to attend a woman who had been shot, the bullet entering 
her shoulder and ranging down her spinal column. 1 saw her at 4 p. m. 
The circumstances as related to me by her husband were as follows: 

He was engaged plowing near his own home and the woman, his wife, 
was in the field with him dropping the seed. As soon as the Spanish 
soldiers, under command of General Kuiz, approached in view, they 
(the Spanish soldiers) commenced firing. Both the husband and wife 
lay down on the ground, and in that position she was shot. As the 
husband was lying down he held a small limb of a tree; this was 
struck with one of the shots. I treated the wound. They were non- 
combatants, unarmed, and pursuing their legitimate vocation in their 
own field; their only offense was that they were Cubans. There were 
at the time no insurgents within 20 miles of them. 

On February 22, 1896, I was present at the city of Punta Braba 
where a battle was fought between the insurgents and the Spanish 
under command of Captain Calvo. The insurgents retreated. The 
Spanish troops then went to Guatao, a suburb about 2 miles distant. 
The insurgents were not there and had not been there. The Spanish 
soldiers at once commenced to shoot private citizens indiscriminately 
on the streets or in their houses, wherever they found them, until they 
had killed six or seven men (noncombatants). 

The soldiers then went into different homes and gathered together 17 
men; they tied these together two and two, binding their hands and 
arms together. Among the number was Mr. Ladislao Quintero, an 
American citizen, who they found in his own home, sick in bed. He 
informed the captain that he was an American citizen and protested 
against being molested. Captain Calvo said he wanted hrm, too, and 
forced him to go, bound with the others. When they were all tied they 
were taken out together on the street and commanded to kneel down. 
After they had done so, then the whole company fired on them by com- 
mand of the captain. The whole of the 17 were killed, except Mr. 
Quintero. He was wounded in the left arm and the man to whom he 
was tied was killed with all the others. This all occurred at 7.30 p. in., 
on February 22, in the immediate presence of the wives and children of 
the unfortunate men. Mr. Quintero was about 21 years of age, born in 
Key West, Fla. The man to whom he was tied, Mr. Pedro Amador, 
was 17 years of age. 

Mr. Pedro Amador was not killed by the gunshot wound he received. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 353 

but one of the Spanish soldiers stepped forward to his prostrate body 
and beat him to death with the butt end of his gun while he was still 
tied to Mr. Quintero, the American citizen. I was present and saw this 
entire proceeding. When I returned to Habana I learned that Mr. 
Quintero was in Morro Castle, a prisoner, where he remained until April 
11 without having his wound dressed. On April 11 he was released. 

I am informed by persons in Habana, who have been prisoners in 
Morro Castle, that there are in this prison as many as 100 prisoners con- 
fined in one small room. That in the morning they are furnished with 
only three pails of water. This is generally used up by 11 o'clock a. m. 
and they are not allowed any more until the following morning. 

In the case of Mr. Edward Delgado, from Banao, an American citi- 
zen who has a claim against the Spanish Government, his papers being 
on file in the Department of State at Washington, you will find by 
reference thereto that I was the physician who certified to his wounds. 
I am familiar with this case, and it is a very aggravated case of extreme 
cruelty to a private American citizen at his own home without provo- 
cation. 

The following is only a few of the many cruel incidents that have 
occurred while I was present: 

When the military courts inflicted the sentence of perpetual imprison- 
ment in the cases of Messrs. Sabourin, Garcia, and others, the Captain- 
General protested against their leniency and asked for the infliction of 
the death penalty. 

On the 12th of March I was called by the sanitary delegation of our 
society in the town of Calvario for the purpose of attending to the case 
of a young man of 19 years, who was wounded in the peaceful pursuit 
of his busiuess — that of a milk dealer. He was driving into the town 
in his milk cart when two soldiers fired on him from an amuush without 
any warning, breaking his right leg. 

I assisted in carrying the man to his home, and then made an exami- 
nation of his wound and found that the bones of his leg had been frac- 
tured in such a manner that amputation was necessary. I found that 
the bullet used was an explosive one made as follows: An outside cov- 
ering of copper filled with lead, which results in the copper covering 
flattening against the lead and scattering it in such a manner as to 
destroy all surrounding tissues and compound the fractures of the 
bones. 

On the 13th of March, at the corner of Eeina and Aguila streets, 
Habana, I found a crowd collected around a prostrate man, and, as a 
member of the White Cross Society, I proceeded to render him what- 
ever aid was necessary. I found the man dead, and counted and made 
an examination of his wounds. He had 71 bayonets wounds, 7 of 
which were through the heart and several though the eyes. He also 
had 4 cuts with the machete on the head, the skull being fractured into 
small pieces. The ferocity of the soldiers was also shown by the marks 
in the sidewalk made by the point of the bayonet after having passed 
through the prostrate form of the man. The cause of the killing was 
as follows: The murdered man was in a dry goods store purchasing 
cloth when the two soldiers entered and, after insulting the proprietor, 
took this man out and killed him in the manner related, saying he was 
an insurgent. The man had no arms whatever on his person, and could 
not, therefore, defend himself in any way. I wrote out a statement of 
his wounds and gave it to the judge in the case, who holds a position 
similar to that of coroner in this country. 

On the 14th of the same month I, as vice-president of the White 

23 



354 CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Cross Society", leceived a report from the town of Artemisa, telling me 
that the Spanish troops under Gen. Suarez Inclan had bomharded an 
insurgent hospital, killing-over 50 wounded men who were receiving treat- 
ment there, and that the surgeon had been compelled to flee to Habana 
hidden in a cart. Upon his arrival at Habana he confirmed the report 
made to me. In Artemisa the ladies of our society had two hospitals, 
one for wounded Spaniards and one for wounded Cubans, the latter 
being the one bombarded, as told. The insurgent forces have entered 
the town of Artemisa several times, but have never disturbed the 
Spanish hospital, although they could have easily done so if they 
wished. 

Another insurgent hospital in the town of Paso Eeal, Province of 
Pinar Del Bio, was also destroyed by the Spaniards, killing all the 
wounded inmates. It is reported that at the time of destruction there 
were about 200 wounded Cubans in it. 

The same thing was done with another hospital in Siguanea, Province 
of Santa Clara. 

Notwithstanding the proclamation of the Captain-General that all 
those surrendering would be pardoned, Mr. Aleman, who surrendered, 
and who also had a wound in the hand, was shot a few days later on 
the plea that his wound showed that he had been fighting. 

In the woman's jail in Habana there is a lady who has been imprisoned 
for the last six months solely because she is suspected of being in sym- 
pathy with the insurgents' cause and because she has two brothers in 
the insurgent army. There are imprisoned, as rebel sympathizers, 
several children, the age of the youngest being 11 years. 

When an armed force approaches any of the interior towns there is 
great excitement and consternation until it is ascertained whether they 
are Spanish troops or insurgent forces. If insurgent forces there is 
immediate tranquillity, as they do not destroy anything unless there are 
Spanish forces located there. But if the approaching troops turn out 
to be Spanish forces there is great confusion and fear, as the Spaniards 
not only sack the town but steal all they desire and also take all detach- 
able woodwork to be used in building their huts. They destroy every- 
thing that comes in their way, take complete j)ossession of the houses, 
violate women in many cases, and commit nuisances in the middle of 
the streets. They claim to go into the towns for the purpose of defend- 
ing them against the insurgents, but on the approach of the latter they 
take refuge in the houses and do not come out until the town is set fire 
to by the insurgents for the purpose of driving them out. I have 
personally seen all this in more than ten cases. 

On the 13th of March I went to the town of Caimito for the purpose 
of leaving medicines, bandages, etc. On arriving there I was informed 
that there were two wounded children at the farm known as " Sala- 
driga." I went to their assistance, but found they had already received 
medical treatment. The eldest of these was 1 year and months old, 
and had suffered a fracture of the right arm caused by a bullet wound. 
The other was 3 months old and had suffered a fracture of the lower 
jaw from a similar cause. I was informed that 2 miles from this place 
the insurgents had attacked a troop-laden train without success. The 
Spanish troops left the train to reconnoiter and took the road on which 
the insurgents had passed. On this road lived the mother of these two 
children. Fearing that some harm might befall them, she decided to 
seek shelter elsewhere. Upon her appearance at the door with two 
children in her arms, she was fired at with the above results. These 
Spanish troops were under Commander Calixto Buiz. 



CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 355 

On the 19th of March I went with my brother, Alfred, to the town of 
Bainoa for the purpose of attending to Mr. Venancio Pino, 70 years of 
age, who was wounded at the same time as Mr. Delgado. I found that he 
had several slight bullet wouuds in the head, but his right arm had been 
horribly fractured, necessitating amputation at the shoulder joint. The 
bone had been fractured into many pieces, and was caused by a bullet 
similar to the one in the case of the milk dealer spoken of before. 

On the Sth of April, at the farms near the town of Campo Florida, 
the Spanish troop under Commander Fondevilla assassinated Mr. 
Ramon Castellanos, 19 years of age ; Joaquin Medina, 14 years old ; Jose 
J. Ochoa, 30 years, and a schoolmaster 35 years of age; Domingo 
Luzans, 3l> years; Margarito Zarza, 50 years; Camilo Oejas, 40 years old; 
Jose Valdes, 14 years old; Manuel Martinez, 40 years old. These were 
buried at a point between the sugar estate of Tivo Tivo and the 
town, the Spaniards forcing the victims to dig their own graves before 
murdering them. 

For the purpose of brevity, I will give the number of noncombatants 
assassinated each day. I have their names and can furnish them if 
required. 

On the 9th of April, 4. 

On the 15th, between Campo Florida and the sugar estate of Felicia, 
10, whose corpses were left without interment. 

On the same day, on the road between G-uanabacoa and Bacuranao, 
5 persons, 2 of whom were cousins of mine. 

Over 100 persons were shot within a radius of 10 miles and not distant 
more than 6 miles from Habana, and within a period of fifteen days. 

All of these were noncombatants. 

The case against Julio Sanguilly, the imprisoned American citizen, 
is purposely delayed so as to keep him incarcerated. 

Ed the case of my brother and myself, we were persecuted for the 
reason that we were American citizens and had charge of American 
church institutions in Habana. 

During the excitement attending the passage of the belligerency 
resolutions in Congress two dynamite bombs were placed in the church 
and exploded while we were holding service, but only resulted in the 
breaking of glass and causing a panic in the congregation. Our house 
was searched, but nothing incriminating was found, but we were 
arrested and imprisoned eight days, being released on the condition 
that we leave Cuba immediately. I would say that no charges were 
made against us. We immediately left Cuba. 

Mr. Toledo, an American citizen employed as a Bible distributer by 
the American Bible Society, was imprisoned in the town of Jaruco, 
and has mysteriously disappeared, and it is believed that he has been 
murdered. 

My brother and I are here for the purpose of laying these facts before 

your committee and to urge the honorable Senate to either recognize 

the belligerency of the Cubans or to have the United States intervene 

or the sake of humanity and civilization. Those are the only methods 

of putting a stop to these frightful barbarities. 

Yours, respectfully, A. J. Diaz. 

Senator Morgan. Do you swear to all that? 
A. Yes, sir. 

Senator Morgan. Then please sign it. 
The witness then signed the paper. 



STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM D. SMITH, ON THE 3D BAY OF 

JUNE, 1897. 

Mr. SMITH was sworn by Mr. Davis, chairman of the committee. 

Senators Clark and Morgan subcommittee. 
By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Will you tell us your name and age? — A. William D. Smith; I 
am in my forty-third year; I was born on the 29th day of February, so 
I have had but ten birthdays. 

Q. Did you ever belong to the Army of the United States? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. Did you hold any office? If so, what? — A. I went into the Army 
of the United States, in the first place, as an enlisted man, April 1, 
1879, and rose to the rank of first sergeant, and then passed an exami- 
nation for a commission, under a request from my company commander. 
I was appointed. 

Q. When did you resign, if you did resign? — A. In 1884, at Fort 
Lowell, Ariz. 

Q. In what occupation have you been since that time? — A. I prac- 
ticed law to the time I went to Cuba. I graduated at Harvard Law 
School, and read law under Senator Edmunds. I was in Troop F, 
Fourth Cavalry, Capt. Wirt Davis, stationed now in Texas. 

Q. Where did you practice law ? — A. In Ohio. . 

Q. When did you go to Cuba? — A. I went to Cuba in 1896. Do you 
mean when I arrived there, or when I left here? I arrived in Havana 
in April, 1896. 

Q. Did you go to Cuba on private business, or for the purpose of 
enlisting in the Cuban army? — A. I was sent there by some Cubans. 
I went there to join the insurgents for that purpose. 

Q. What body of insurgents did you first join and where? — A. Gen- 
eral Swarra, in the Province of Ca/naguey. 

Q. How long did you remain with him? — A. I joined General Swarra 
on the 15th day of April ; was with him just two months, nearly, to a day. 

Q. Did you hold an office in the army under him ? — A. Yes, sir. I 
will make an explanation of that. I held an office under him; that is, 
afterwards it developed that way. General Gomez gave me my diploma, 
dating it from the hour I arrived on the island — that is, he did not then 
date it, but gave me my rank from the hour I arrived. The Cubans do 
not use the word commission; tliey use the word diploma. I have with 
me my diploma, and that is it, dated the 18th of October last. It is in 
Spanish, of course. 

356 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 357 

Q. Was the commission authorized by the civil government"? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

(Witness here produced his commission as captain in the Cuban 
army, signed by Gomez, and dated the 18th of October, 1896.) 

A. (Continued.) 1 will explain about that as to who gives the com- 
missions. The general in chief of the Cuban army, according to their 
laws, has the authority to give a man a rank as high as comandante, 
corresponding to a major with us. 1 was made a comandante two days 
before I left cam]); but the government had not acted on it, and I do 
not claim the rani; until they do. He can appoint officers up to the rank 
of captain ; but when he goes above that he recommends a man and the 
civil government acts upon his recommendation. 

Q. The civil government 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; you will see that the gen- 
eral's seal is on there. 

Q. Did you receive any further promotion in that army*? — A. Only 
as I tell you. When I left, when I came on this commission, I was 
recommended for comandante. 

Q. Equivalent to major in the United States Army 1 ? — A. Y"es, sir. 

Q. That rank you now hold 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; the government had no 
time to act on it — they were in Camaguey and we were in La Villos. 

( L >. You do not have your diploma as comandante 1 ? — A. No, sir. 

(}. When did you join General Gomez 1 ? — A. The 15th day of June, 
1S90, at the battle of Saratoga. 

Q. Under whose orders'? — A. I was ordered to report to him (I had 
three generals to report to) by the Cuban government. I had my 
choice as between Antonio Maceo, Calixta Garcia, or Gomez, and Gomez 
happened to be the nearest officer after I got into Camaguey. Swarra 
and Gomez were in one end of the Province, and when they came 
together I left Swarra and went to Gomez. 

Q. Where was he when you joined? — A. At Saratoga. It was 
during that fight. 

( ,). He was in the midst of the battle when you joined? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you win that fight ? — A. He gave General Catalanio a thorough 
thrashing. The Spanish acknowledged they were defeated. It was 
one of the battles in which they never denied they were whipped. 

Q. In what Province? — A. At Camaguey, 7 leagues from Puerto 
Principe — 21 miles. They fought two days, and General Gomez drove 
them off the field and fired at their troops as they entered into Puerto 
Principe, and then camped on the ground three days. 

Q. What were their relative losses, killed and wounded? — A. The 
Cubans lost 68 — that is their official report — killed, and 110 wounded. 
The Spanish loss we do not know exactly, although I witnessed some 
ISO dug up and counted by the general's order. The only way the 
Cubans have of ascertaining the loss of the Spanish is by digging them 
up. They bury their dead and Cubans dig them up and count them. 
Then they are reburied at once, without other disturbance. 

Q. Where are they buried? — A. Just where they fall. 

0. During that fight? — A. Yes, sir. You have to bury a dead man 
about as quick as he drops; if you don't there will be no staying there. 

Q. Have you been constantly with Gomez from that time until the 
time you left Cuba? — A. Yes, sir; with the exception, of course, of 
being sent from time to time in charge of commissions, I have been 
constantly under his orders until the 2d day of last month. 

Q. What was the longest time you were abseut from his command? — 
A. Twenty days was the longest time I was ever absent. He sent me 
on a commission to a sugar plantation to see about the permits. 



358 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Was that before Gomez had been down to the west of Pinar del 
Eio, or after? — A. Before; I joined after he went down there. 

Q. Did you go with him through Pinar del Rio? — A. No. sir. 

Q. You were, then, with him on his great march? — A. Ob, no; tbatis 
a mistake; I was not. This great march of his was before I joined bim. 
That march from one end of the island to tbe other was previous. 
When he came back from Pinar del Eio, tben I joined him. After the 
fight at Saratoga, ten or fifteen days, allowing sufficient time to rest bis 
troops, he made a trip down to the Orient to visit Calixta Garcia, whom 
he had not seen since the ten-year war, and we found him near Santiago. 
There was no fight on the way, although we bad several battles after 
we got there and he had met his old comrade. 

Q. After that, did be go to Pinar del Rio? — A. No, sir; not since I 
have been with him. 

Q. Have you been in other important engagements in which Gomez 
was in command? — A. I have been in every engagement be has been 
in. I have a record of them, but do not have it here. There were 
42 engagements I have been in with General Gomez, besides little 
skirmishes I did not count. It is a dash and a few shots and get out 
of the way where they outnumber you. There were 242 engagements 
where be stood bis ground and camped on the ground of the Spaniards, 
the last engagement just a few days before I left, when General Gomez 
and General Weyler met for the first time. 

Q. Where was that? — A. At La Reform a. 

Q. A sugar estate? — A. No, sir; not a sugar estate; it is a cattle 
range; the most beautiful place, I think, in La Vilbas. It is General 
Gomez's favorite camping ground, because his son was born tbere. 

Q. How did the last battle wind up? — A. General Weyler withdrew 
the troops and went to Puerto Principe and Gomez camped on the 
ground. 

Q. How many troops were engaged? — A. Gomez had 1,500, or possibly 
2,000 — I am trying to get this as near rigbt as possible — I do not want 
to overestimate. The Spanish had 20,000 men — General Weyler bad 
20,000 troops with him. 

Q. 20,000 in bodies within reach of each other?— A. No, sir; 20,000 
men right in the fight at one time; not in a mass, in any one body, but 
he had 20,000 in columns. The fighting down tbere requires explana- 
tion. It seems ridiculous that 1,500 men would stand and fight 20,000, 
but the Spaniards always march in a column of 1,000 men and 1 piece 
of artillery — 1 cannon. They came into Reforma in twenty different 
directions. The trap was being laid by General Weyler to capture 
General Gomez. The General was cognizant of it for two weeks, and 
waited for them to come. The way he fought those 20,000, he would 
have 100 men fight one column, and 50 men fight another column, and 
100 men fight another, and 75 still another column, and so on, and he 
stood them off like that. I have known 10 Cubans to hold a Spanish 
column of 1,000 men until General Gomez could get together his 
impedimenta and get out — hold them at a dead standstill. I account 
for it by the reason that the Spaniards thought that there was a trap, 
an ambuscade, and they would not run into it. That is General 
Gomez's tactics; he has done it several times. 

Q. What is the area of that estate? — A. Between ten and twelve 
thousand acres. 

Q. What were tbe losses inthebattleof'LaReforma? — A. Thelastone? 

Q. Yes, sir.— A. The Cnban losses were 20, I think, killed, during 
the two days' fighting. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 359 

Q. Eow many days'? — A. Two days. 

Q. How many wounded.' — A. The wounded it is hard to estimate. 
We never know the exact number wounded, because so many are 
wounded who do not pay any attention to it. I saw one man wounded 
who was shot with a Mauser bullet, which passed right through him, 
and we never knew anything about it for two days. That seems almost 
miracn Ions, but it is true. I suppose you have seen that Mauser bullet. 
The lead is covered by some metal. I can show you a wound that you 
would have said, if it had happened with any other cartridge, that I 
would have had to have an amputation. One went right through my 
ankle, and I was only in the hospital two hours — long enough to have 
it done up. The bullet does not make any fracture. I have never seen 
a case of amputation since I have been on the island, and it does not 
cause septicaemia. There is the wound [exhibiting]. The bullet entered 
here [pointing to his ankle] and came out there. I was never laid up 
a minute. The doctor in camp simply dressed it with iodoform and a 
little antiseptic. That is why I say it is almost impossible to give an 
exact account of the wounded. 

(). About how many' — A. I should should say 50 or 75. 

Q. What was the loss to the Spaniards'? — A. Their loss was 180 or 
1S5 killed, and the wounded we never know, although in getting here 
after leaving camp I ran across a practico — that is, a guide — and he told 
us he had guided General Weyler's forces across the Rio Sassa, and he 
got it from the soldiers that they had 300 or 400 wounded. 

Q- Weyler was in personal command on the one side and Gomez on 
the other at that time? — A. Yes, sir;, the first time they had ever met. 
The Xew York Sun gave an account of it. 

Q. Where did Gomez's troops camp after that battle ? — A. At Eeforma, 
on the battlefield. He has always marched over the battlefield since I 
have been with him. 

O. General Gomez is commander in chief of the Cuban army? — A. He 
calls himself the general in chief. The commander in chief is Cisneros 
Betancourt. 

Q. Under whom does he hold his commission? — A. Under the Cuban 
Government, lie has a diploma, the same as I have — I have seen it — 
only, of course, with different names and grades. 

Q. Ho all the officers hold their commissions from the civil govern- 
ment ? — A. Everything above a captain. 

Q. Does Gomez make report to the civil government? — A. Daily. 
They may not get them daily, but there is a daily report made by 
Gomez to the civil government. He makes them up, and every two or 
three days they are sent by couriers. Of course, there may be a jump 
of a day or two. 

Q. Does he report for his own command or entire army? — A. For the 
entire army. 

Q. The army, then, is divided into A. Into six army corps. 

Q. And six generals.' — A. Yes. Those army corps are divided into 
divisions, and those divisions into regiments, and those regiments into 
companies. It is a facsimile of our Army in that respect. 

Q. He receives his reports, then, from the six army corps command- 
ers? — A. Yes, sir; he is the only man that reports to the government; 
the others all report to him. 

Q. How are the communications maintained between Gomez at his 
headcjiiarters and these other five corps? — A. By the couriers — by dis- 
patch. 

Q. Are the communications free, certain, and rapid? — A. They have 



360 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

there what they call — that is, under the control of the civil govern- 
ment, they have what they call — their mail service, which reaches all 
over the island. They have their post-office and houses, and they call 
it la casa posta. A courier rides up to one of these post-offices 

By Mr. CLARK: 

Q. This post-office system is under the Cuban civil government? — A. 
Yes, sir; under the civil government. Gomez has only to do with the 
army; the post-office is exclusively under the civil government. 

By Mr. MORGAN : 

Q. What are those Spanish names? — A. La casa posta, that is a 
house post office, a depository for letters, a post-house. General Gomez 
wishes to send a communication to General Garcia, we will say. The 
mail is delivered to these couriers, who do not do anything but handle 
this mail. They are called la casa posta hombres, the post-house men. 
He takes these packages from Gomez and signs his receipt to Gomez. 
He carries that — the distance varies from 5 to 6 leagues, a league is a 
trifle over 3 American miles — he carries it, mounted and in his sad- 
dlebags, to the post-house. There he turns it over to another man, 
who receipts to him, counts the different packages and letters, and 
receipts the number he receives from the courier. He jumps on a pony 
and goes right on. No matter what time of day or night, he is com- 
pelled to go with it, and so it goes on from hand to hand until it 
reaches its desti nation. 

Q. And that is the method by which communication is kept between 
the different corps? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have they any local telegraph offices? — A. No, sir; the Cubans 
do not allow any telegraph offices. Of course, when the war started 
they were all over the island, but the wires have all been cut down. 

By Mr. Clark: 
Q. It would seem that communication, even mail service, is main- 
tained by the civil government and not by the army? — A. Gomez has 
nothing to do with that, not the management. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Where are these six army corps located? — A. The first army corps 
is under command of Calixta Garcia. That commences at Baracoa, and 
runs to the Province of Camaguey. Then another one is in Camaguey, 
commanded by — General Viga is in command of this army corps, called 
the second army corps. The third is under command of General 
Riviera, who has been recently taken prisoner and is now in Moro 
Castle. This is in the extreme west. The fourth is under General 
Vegas; the fifth, in Havana Province, under command of General Rosa, 
a Colombian, and the sixth is through here, these two Provinces [point- 
ing on the map], in command of General Maria Roderigues, in the Prov- 
ince of Matanzas, in Santa Clara. 

Q. What is the estimated numerical strength of these six army 
corps? — A. The strength of the six army corps at the last report was 
40,216 armed men — I will give the exact figures — it will be more now. 
Three expeditions have lauded on the island since I left General Gomez, 
and the strength Avill be more instead of less. Every expedition that 
lands with arms makes the strength of the army greater. 

Q. Are the troops waiting for arms? — A. Always. You can find in 
Gomez's army all the way from 500 to 1,000 men waiting; that is, in the 
vicinity. He does not, of course, allow them in the immediate camp. 



AFFATRS IN CUBA. 361 

Q. If Gomez could get arms, to what extent could be recruit and 
maintain his army.' — A. A little over 00,000. 

< L >. How are these army corps maintained? — A. What do you mean 
by that— living? 

Q. Yes. — A. That is managed by — so far as the beef is concerned, 
they manage that themselves, but the vegetables and other food — every- 
thing with the exception of beef — is handled by the civil government.- 
It supplies them to the army. To make an explanation, the civil gov- 
ernment has under them prefectos and subprefectos in each Province. 
In each of the Provinces there is a governor and three lieutenant-gov- 
ernors. This governor and these three lieutenant-governors have under 
them prefectos and subprefectos. The prefectos act the same and are 
the facsimile of our justices of the peace. They collect the government 
revenue and report to the lieutenant-governor of the district they are 
in; the lieutenant-governor makes his report to the governor, and the 
governor makes his report to the government. They have to have a 
system of that kind. The Cubans are collecting the tax all the length 
of this island, and have been until Gomez objected to any grinding on 
the Island of Cuba. Gomez is opposed to having any grinding. He 
thinks : whether a foreigner or anybody else owns the property, the 
property should be destroyed if Spain derives any revenue from it, 
and if the Cubans are successful they can settle with the foreigner, and 
if not it devolves on the Spanish Government to settle. The govern- 
ment has held him down, and he has held his point so far. There have 
been a few ready to grind, especially in the Trinidad Valley. 

Q. Grind sugar? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is there a tax system outside of this license for grinding? — A. 
ISTot at present, because there is no one from whom to collect a tax. 
All the good Cubans are in the army. There may be a few in the 
cities. I know nothing about that, but there is not a Cuban in 
the island in the interior who is not either fighting or working ten 
hours a day to support those who are fighting. 

Q. Working how? — A. Tilling the soil, or making shoes or saddles, 
or something of the kind. In this Province— Puerto Principe — there is 
a shop where there are 300 mechanics, and they are mechanics. If you 
could see some of the work, you would agree with me. They have 
almost every kind of machinery conceivable pertaining to the work in 
that shop. These 300 men are making shoes. The hides of the beeves 
killed the entire length of the island are collected as fast as they are 
taken off the animals, and they are taken to the place for tanuiug, up in 
the mountains, and then the leather taken to a shop. Every Province 
has its shop. I mention this one in Puerto Principe particularly 
because it is the best, I think. You can go there with a horse and 
come away with a new saddle and bridle and your horse well shod. 

Q. Who pays them?— A. The men? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. They are Cubans; they are supposed to do this for 
nothing. They have their choice to enter the army or contribute to its 
support. These shops are all under the management of the civil gov- 
ernment. Every Cuban on the Island of Cuba, unless he has run away 
and got under the protection of the Spanish Government, is supposed 
to have a gun in his hand or be working for those who have a gun; and 
they do it with a royal good will. These men work ten hours a day; 
the pacificos go to the mountains and till the soil. I saw in Trinidad, 
where there were 15 or 20 acres on the slope of the mountains where 
they have cut the timber down and planted sweet potatoes, and you 
can kick out sweet potatoes as large as that cuspidor. I have not eaten 



362 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

a meal on the island without having all I wanted, and the finest honey 
and beef and sweet potatoes. Gomez is husbanding the beef, and I 
think he has enough to last time immemorial. They are only allowed 
to kill what is actually consumed. The same can be said of the horses; 
all under the control of the Cubaus are in depositos. He does not 
allow a soldier to ride a mare, only geldings; that is in case the war is 
prolonged, so that they may have their horses. They systematically 
propagate horses, males, and cattle. 

Q. From your knowledge of resources of Cuba and its power to pro- 
duce animal life, how long do you think that the Cuban government 
could sustain an army of fifty or sixty thousand men? — A. Under the 
plan or system they are working now, I do not know why they should 
not support it for ages. I know that the cattle are apparently just as 
many as when I went there a year ago, and more vegetables, because 
they have been accumulating them all the time. The civil government 
works at that all the time, and there are more of them than a year 
ago. 

By Mr. Clark : 

Q. How are the women and children provided for? — A. Those in the 
interior — their husbands, the pacificos — the rule is this: The civil gov- 
ernment allows one man to provide food for every five women and 
children. These can be five women, or one woman and four children, 
but it allows one man to stay away from the army — or a portion of the 
time — one man for five women and children. That is thecivil law. And 
they have their houses in these mountains, and they raise their pork 
and vegetables, and a great many of the women work in the shops 
where they are making clothes for the soldiers. In one portion of this 
shop there was a great number — I never counted them — daughters of 
the Cubans in the field and their wives, in there making clothes. I 
have seen 10,000 suits of clothes at one time, piled out there. That 
includes a pair of pants, a coat, and shoes. 

Q. Is the Cuban army well fed 1 ? — A. The best I ever saw in any army. 
I have not had a meal — and that applies to the army, when I say myself 
I mean all — I have not had five meals on the island 

Q. What? — A. There have not been five meals on the island when I 
have not had my coffee and sugar. I say sugar; sometimes we had 
honey in place of the sugar 

Q. Where is the coffee raised? — A. Certain kinds of coffee grow wild 
in this province of Santa Clara. In these Trinidad hills there is one 
vast forest of coffee, where I have seen coffee on the ground 2 inches 
thick — on the ground rotting. 

Q. Is it good coffee? — A. It is fair coffee. It is not the best coffee. 
Their best coffee is not the very best grade of coffee 

Q. It makes a good, wholesome beverage? — A. Yes, sir; it is good 
enough, so that when the soldiers don't get it they growl considerably. 

Q. You would say the army is well fed? — A. Yes, sir; I hardly 
think that expresses it; they have luxuries. Now, a soldier who gets 
a piece of meat, a piece of bacon, and hard tack and coffee is well fed. 
I consider it for a soldier in the army it is good enough to fight on, but 
they have a good deal better than that; it is far above the average. 

Q. This beef, is it a good quality? — A. It is the best I ever set eyes 
on, and I have done soldiering ou our frontier. 

Q. On our Western frontier? — A. Yes, sir; and there is nothing on 
our Western ranges that can touch it. 

Q. You were speaking of the Western country. How many years' 
experience had you there? — A. I had nearly nine years. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 363 

Q. On our Western frontier as a soldier? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Among the [ndians? — A. Yes, sir; in Troop F, Fourth Cavalry. 
Fred Grant, son of General Grant, was the first lieutenant of the troop 
when I was in it. 

Q. How are the people, the inhabitants who live within the Cuban 
line — how are they supported — well supported? — A. The same as the 
soldiers are. They raise all this food for the soldiers, and they take 
enough for their families. It is they who bring' in these vegetables and 
honey and cheese. 1 have seen four hundred cheeses lying in Gomez's 
camp. When a soldier has cheese and honey to eat he is not starving. 

Q. Is it a good grazing country? — A. In some parts of Puerto Prin- 
cipe it is a great grazing country, the finest part of the island. They 
have a great deal of milk there. In certain portions of the Province 
it is the finest grazing country I ever saw. The great advantage it has 
over our country is that they never have drought there. The water 
is exceptionally good. All the streams are mountain streams, virtually 
springs. 

< v >. Then you would say, if I understand your statement, that the 
Cuban Republic, occupying the ground it does now, could sustain an 
army of 50,000 men for an indefinite period, and that during that period 
the people would be in comfortable circumstances as to living? — A. 
Yes. sir; I want this committee to understand one thing about this. I 
do not have any knowledge regarding the Cubans or anyone else within 
the cities. I know nothing about that. If there is a Cuban in a city 
he ought to starve to death. He has no business to be there, and if he 
would get out and go to work, as a good Cuban ought to do, for his 
country, he could have all he wanted to eat for himself and family. 

(,>. What is the condition of health, and what has it been, since you 
have been there, in the Cuban army"? — A. 1 have not seen a single case 
of smallpox or fever, and, as for myself, I have not seen a sick man. 

(}. Is that true of the rural population? — A. Yes, sir; the Cubans 
never have smallpox or yellow fever in the country. Those are confined 
to the cities, where there is dirt and filth, and they do not take care of 
themselves. That is what they tell me, and I know from my own expe- 
rience. I have never seen a case of yellow fever or smallpox. 

Q. Is it a pleasant country to live in, the rural portions?— A. Delight- 
ful. The climate is perfect. There are a few hours in the day, during 
the months of July and August, from 11 until 1 o'clock, when a man is 
more comfortable in the shade than where the sun strikes him, consid- 
erably more comfortable; but wheu it comes night — I have not seen a 
night when I did not want.a blanket over me. The Cubans all have 
blankets, very much like our army blankets, and their hammocks. 

< L >. You were speaking of these manufactures and shops. Are they 
scattered throughout the island in different locations'? — A. Yes, sir. 
Suppose General Gomez wishes to supply a few men in his escort or 
the Victoria regiment, which are always with him. If he wishes to 
supply 5 or 6 or 10 men, he puts in a written requisition to the civil 
government. It goes to the government, to President Cisneros Betan- 
court, and he acts upon their requisition. Of course, all Gomez's requi- 
sitions are granted, and it is sent to the nearest factory or shop to 
< General Gomez, to the governor of that Province, and he takes it and 
gives it to his lieutenant-governor, telling him that Gomez is within his 
jurisdiction, and orders him to supply that requisition. General Gomez 
himself can not ride up to one of those shops and even get a horseshoe 
nail without an order from the governor. The only thing Gomez has 
exclusive command of is matters pertaining to the army. Xow I mean 



364 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

by that, in the case of depositories of arms it is a little different. The 
civil government does not have anything to do with the distribution of 
the arms, although the arms and ammunition when they first come to 
Cuba are first turned over to the civil government. These expeditions 
never account to General Gomez, but to the civil government, and then 
the civil government turns them over to Gomez and he makes his own 
distribution. 

Q. They have repair shops for arms? — A. Yes, sir. Do you know 
the Cuban government has made several guns, and made one cannon 
and molded it? That was done in the Province of Santa Clara. 

Q. Have they any manufacturers of explosives or powder? — A. They 
have a great deal of dynamite. 

Q. Do they make it?— A. Oh, no; but they make powder. All the 
cartridge shells used by the Cubans are preserved. After the fight all 
the shells are gathered together and sent to these shops. And there 
are men who reload them and make powder. What they make their 
powder of I do not know, but I have tested their cartridges and they 
will work well. They do that constantly. 

Q. Is there a general arsenal? — A. No, sir; every province has its 
own shops. 

Q. Its own shop? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. I will ask you about hospitals; have they hospitals established? — 
A. Yes, sir; some very fine ones. I mentioned Puerto Principe prin- 
cipally because I know that from A to Z ; that is where most of my 
soldiering was done until we came to Santa Clara. There are good 
hospitals there. The lieutenant governor has a large hospital under 
his immediate control. Then there are several smaller hospitals where 
a man, if he gets a little indisposed, can have a place to go to. They 
will send him to one of these little hospitals and let him recuperate, 
and then report back. These hospitals for the wounded are well sup- 
plied and well ventilated under the management of a doctor. That is 
a thing the Cubans are well supplied with; they have some very fine 
doctors. They are men who have graduated from our colleges and 
schools, among others from Rush Medical College. The doctor of 
President Cisneros is a graduate of Hahnemann College, a homeopathist. 
General Gomez's doctor graduated from Push Medical College, the old 
school, then went to New York and took a special course in surgery in 
Bellevue, and the director — the medical director — with a rank of brig- 
adier, Agramonte, who is the chief medical director of the island, 
graduated from both schools, homeopathy and allopathy, and speaks 
English as well as I do. 

Q. I wish to ask, Have you visited any of the Cuban hospitals or been 
about any of the hospitals after they have fallen under the hands of the 
Spaniards? — A. Yes, sir; about two months. The exact date I do not 
know. I saw the only one that has come under my personal knowledge, 
but I heard of several. In the Province of Las Vegas they had a tempo- 
rary affair put up after a fight at Mahaugh, only a short distance from a 
royal road, and the Spanish column in marching by there discovered 
the hospital by some hook or crook. We have always supposed it was 
discovered by some Cuban, a traitor to the cause and a practico for the 
Spaniards. They went in there. In that hospital there were 20 wounded, 
3 lady nurses, and 1 doctor with the rank of lieutenant, and a guard of 8 
men. That column went in and surprised the outfit and killed every 
one of them. I was on the ground about an hour and a half after, or I 
should judge about an hour and a half, for their bodies were still warm. 
They were cut up into pieces by machetes. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 365 

By Mr. Clark: 

Q. That includes the nurses? — A. Yes, sir. 
By Mr. .Morgan: 

Q. How did you happen to be there? — A. We were right after these 
troops; we knew they were in the field; we had an engagement with 
them and were following this column. 

Q. To what point were they marching? — A. Sancti Espiritus. 

Q. On the retreat:' — A. Ves, sir. 

Q. You were following? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And in that way you happened to be at that point where they 
killed these people? — A. It did not happen so; we were bound to reach 
there. We saw the smoke and we hurried, but when we reached there 
they were gone and the bodies were not cold. 

Q. Were the women dismembered? — A. Yes, sir; the bodies were 
cut to pieces. I got from a physician — this is something I do not know 
anything about, it is not in my line, but General Gomez's doctor informed 
me that these three women had been outraged previous to being killed. 
That I do not know, and do not state it as knowledge. That is why I 
did not mention it when I first gave an account of it. 

Q. Yon saw their bodies? — A. Yes, sir; it was the worst sight I ever 
did see. I never want to have a repetition of that, for a man who once 
sees it never gets it out of his mind. 

Q. Were all destroyed? — A. Yes, sir. You all know what a machete 
is. They run their machete through one man, and rip him right up 
the stomach, disemboweling him. That is the only case I ever saw, 
although I have heard of a great many others. 

Q. You think you are safe in saying that no person, whether a soldier, 
doctor, woman, or patient escaped being killed? — A. I do not think even 
the dog escaped. Nothing that breathes the breath of life escaped that 
slaughter. 

Q. About what time was that? — A. They must have struck the place 
about 11 o'clock in the morning, because we were close on them. We 
had a fight with them that morning at daybreak, and they pulled out 
and left us, and we followed them up, and when we got on the ground 
it was between 1 and 2 o'clock in the afternoon. This must have 
happened about 11. 

Q. What month ? — A. This was about two months ago, possibly two 
months and a halt': I have no date. I never expected any examination 
of this kind, and kept no record. 

Q. At what place had you fought with them that morning? — A. At 
Mahawangh. 

Q. During the operations you witnessed in Cuba, by General Gomez 
and the army under him, have you ever known any ill treatment to be 
bestowed upon a prisoner or a hospital? — A. No, sir; I want to illus- 
trate that by something I know, that came under my own observa- 
tion, regarding General Gomez. Three days after we received the 
information that his son had been assassinated — in one sense he was 
assassinated, because he was only wounded, and refused to leave his 
chieftain and was macheted; Captain Gordon told me that Poncho 
Gomez was only wounded, and after he was wounded he refused to 
leave the body of Maceo, and the Spaniards came and killed him with 
their machetes — three days after General Gomez received the news of 
his sous death there were 10 Spaniards brought in who had been 
captured by the Cubans, who had been on a foraging expedition; not 
exactly foraging, but letting their horses graze near the main camp, 



366 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

thinking - they were near enough to be safe, but who were gobbled up 
by a small party of Cubans. I saw Gomez look at them when they 
were brought in, and he said, in Spanish, of course, u I suppose if this 
thing should happen under your Government that you men would not 
stand much show of living. I have no place to keep you" — they had 
no place in which to keep them, although they have in Cainaguey — 
" all I ask of you, gentlemen, is to get out of my sight," and he let 
them go, keeping their arms and ammunition. That was three days 
after the death of his son. 

Q. About how many prisoners taken from the Spanish troops or 
armies have you known Gomez to release without any conditions? — A. 
I suppose 500 of them. I don't think that an exaggeration. 

Q. Have you ever known one of them to be executed? — A. I have 
known one man that was shot. Of course Gomez did not do that or 
order it to be done. At the surrender of Wymaro, in Puerto, there 
were about 200 prisoners, and they were allowed the freedom of the 
camp, but were told they were prisoners, and if they tried to escape 
they would be killed, and after that order there was one private soldier 
tried to run the lines and the guard shot him. That was the only case 
I knew. 

Q. You have never known of any prisoners or soldiers being exe- 
cuted? — A. No, sir; I have not only known of it, but there has not been 
any. I would not fight with an army that would kill a man without a 
trial, and if they did I would not help them down there. 

Q. I wish to ask you something about the composition of that army. 
.First, as to the races; what is the proportion as to the negroes? — A. 
The actual proportion, they have got that exact — the Government has; 
but President Cisneros told me that the white Cubans predominated by 
a little over three-quarters, one-quarter blacks and mulattoes; it is a 
little over three-quarters white. 

Q. Are the negroes good soldiers? — A. Yes, sir; if they have white 
men with them. I do not think the negroes will fight well unless they 
have ^hite troops with them. I know in our army we do not think 
the negroes — those of Ninth and Tenth Cavalry or the Twenty-fifth — 
would fight well unless they had white troops with them. 

Q. Take the body of the Cuban army, the white people in it, are they 
as intelligent as the average of people in the rural districts here — what 
we call backwoods of the United States? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Are they patriotic? — A. As much so as any class of people I ever 
saw. So much so that I not only heard General Gomez and the gov- 
ernment and the officers, but I have heard private soldiers talk. I 
will say that there is not a man in the escort or in the Victoria regi- 
ment that I have not heard an expression from similar to this : That 
before they would lay down their arms they would let every Spaniard 
in Spain walk over their dead bodies, and they would not aceept any- 
thing but absolute independence. If you want to make them angry, 
talk autonomy to them. They say they have been caught once, but 
they will never be the fish to be caught again with the same bait. And 
I have heard Gomez say that they should be glad to have the United 
States recognize them, but that they will keep up the war until they 
secure independence if it takes twenty years to do it. 

Q. Is there any considerable proportion of native Americans in the 
Cuban army? — A. I do not think there is over 20 in the army, unless 
they have come with these recent expeditions. The Americans in the 
army are very brave men and a good deal of help to the Cuban cause. 

Q. Not over 20 ? — A. Not over 20 or 25. You have heard of the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 367 

Texas cowboys, calling themselves the Lone Star Riflemen, etc. That 
is not so. I could not tell where these stories originate, but they have 
been exaggerated. I think 1 know and could name every American in 
the Cuban army; and, with the exception of Colonel Gordon and myself, 
they were all with Gen. Calixta Garcia. The Cubans could not handle 
the artillery, and the Americans are with the artillery. They have a 
bodyguard of about 500 men — Cubans — the general has given to them 
to back them up when they are laying siege to a place. Colonel Gor- 
don was with Maceo and I am with Gomez, and we are the only ones 
separated from the main body. There is a little fellow named Funston, 
who made a trip through Alaska, a sou of a Representative from Kansas, 
who is chief of the Cuban artillery force of the island. I saw him at 
Wymaro. He belonged to Topeka, Kaus., to a little volunteer artillery 
force. He is about 24 or -5. I saw him at Wymaro make 112 shots 
under the direction of General Garcia, who was telling him where to 
aim, and out of the 112 shots he only missed one. General Gomez gave 
it that way in his report. 

<i>. What would you say was the type of the controlling men in Cuba, 
as to the character, as to the behavior, as to the education and general 
social worth ? — A. Well, you take the people in the Island of Cuba, and 
I can not see there is much difference between them and our own Repub- 
lic except in this respect : The Spanish people have controlled the island 
and there has not been much opportunity for education, or to amount 
to anything, except in the large cities. In the rural districts the edu- 
cation they have secured has been by hard knocks; they have picked 
it up. The Cuban people as a race are peace-loving people. They do not 
want this war, and do not like it. They are generous, free-hearted 
people, giving their last dollar or anything to a man in distress or want. 
I know they do not want the war; they see their island destroyed; every 
day it is growing less in value. ISfow, aside from the rural districts, I 
could take you into General Gomez's camp and introduce you (and I 
would not jump, I would take all the officials) to as fine a lot of gentle- 
men as you would want to meet; refined gentlemen, educated gentle- 
men, some even classically educated. In their different professions and 
walks of life they have acquired a great deal of knowledge — outside 
knowledge, of course. A great many of them were educated in the United 
States. But the country people, a great many of them, can not read 
nor write; a great many of the negroes can not read nor write; a great 
many can. I have a servant, a white Cuban, who is the most ambitious 
fellow I ever saw to learn. He could read and write. I also had a 
negro, the cook, who was the same way — wanted to learn, anxious to 
learn, but never had an opportunity. 

Q. Are there any private quarrels, or strife, or bickerings, among 
those people? — A. As far as this point of national freedom is concerned, 
they are all of one mind. Of course, take au army of soldiers, and lit- 
tle quarrels arise among the men, and are settled. Of course, if Gomez 
hears of it. they are punished, and put in the guardhouse, and tried by 
court-martial. General Gomez, after he has once issued a diploma to a 
second lieutenant or any other officer, can not break that officer or 
reduce him to the ranks except they are tried by court-martial. Gomez 
acts on the fine of the court-martial, and it is sent to the civil govern- 
ment, and they either approve or disapprove of findings of the court- 
martial. 

Q. Are the private soldiers, in camp or on the march, protected by 
the right of the court-martial when accused? — A. Yes, sir; Gomez has 
no authority to punish a man; he does not pretend to punish without 



368 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

a court-martial. I saw General Gomez shoot a com andante, kill him 
on the spot (rank of major), and the incident that brought that about 
would have caused the same in any army. I would have killed him 
myself, and I am an American. At the siege of Cascorra, Gomez 
had quite an army, about 3,000 cavalry and 6,000 or 8,000 infantry. 
The Spanish were out in force. Gomez had decided to annihilate the 
army, so far as Camaguey was concerned. He had intrusted a v r ery 
important mission to a comandante, by the name of Meander, to carry 
his dispatches to the cavalry, about 5,000 cavalry, under different co- 
mandantes. It rested with him whether the cavalry should come into 
that engagement. He was to carry the dispatch. He started with it, 
but never delivered it. It developed afterwards that he was a sympa- 
thizer with the Spanish army, although a Cuban and holding a com- 
mission in the Cuban army. The result was that Gomez's cavalry never 
got into the fight, and the Spaniards got away into Puerto Principe. 
And when they met, Gomez asked him if he delivered the order, and 
he said he did not, and the general drew his revolver and shot the man, 
killing him, and sat down and wrote to the civil government. 

By Mr. CLARK: 

Q. Does there seem to be a lack of unanimity and authority in fch© 
different corps commanders'? — A. Not as much jealous feeling as I have 
seen in my own corps in the United States Army. The more ignorant 
a man is generally the more that will creep in, but I never saw anything 
of it with the Cubans. Take it in the case of myself. I was appointed 
a captain in Gomez's escort, where they are all officers, appointed over 
the heads of old Cubans who have been in the service for years — some 
of them with him in the ten-year war — appointed second in command, 
jumping over all the others, and there is no jealousy of me. 

Q. About what is the strength of that escort*? — A. From 70 to 90. 

Q. All officers'? — A. Yes, sir. With the exception of myself, there 
is no man in it who has got in except through some special act of brav- 
ery. They are General Gomez's bodyguard. He goes into an engage- 
ment, and they are first into the fight and the last to leave, and, by 
reason of that, I know they have from 10 to 15 or 20 in the hospital, and 
they have nearly all been wounded more than once. I have never been 
wounded except the once. 

Q. What is the strength of this Victoria Begiment? — A. When it 
came into Las Vegas it was 142; when I left there, the other day, they 
were all, with the exception of 38, in the hospital, wounded. 

Q. In the hospital from wounds! — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Not from sickness? — A. No, sir. A Cuban soldier seldom goes to 
the hospital from being sick. I have never seen one in the hospital 
from sickness since 1 have been on the island. 

Q. Have you seen Cisneros and the members of the civil government 
since you have been there? — A. Yes, sir; a great many times. The pres- 
ident is very much a friend of mine, as is also the assistant secretary 
of war, Portuando, although the secretary himself is there now. 

Q. Have they any permanent headquarters? — A. At what they call 
Nahassa, but Cisneros Batoncourt, the president — you can not keep him 
anywhere. If they would allow it he would be in the fight, and he 
wants to be near where the fighting is anyway. He is an old man — 
about 80 years old. Their headquarters is at Nahassa. 

Q. The same place you call Cubitos? — A. It is in the vicinity. 
Nahassa is a very level piece of country, a beautiful river running 
through it, and fine grass for the horses. Cubitos is a little back of it, 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 369 

and is a place supposed to be used by the government in case of an 
emergency, because it is deemed impregnable. 

Q. A retreat for the government? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. .Does he move over the island whenever business calls him? — A. 
Yes, sir. He has a bodyguard of about 200 men, used as the body- 
guard at night and as an advance guard in the daytime. When the 
Cubans went across the trocha he went along with General Gomez, and 
stayed there until Gomez told him he wanted them to go back. Gomez 
would not do any lighting while the government was there, for this 
reason, because he says I am afraid to fight while you are here. I do 
not want any of the government killed or captured, and I am nervous 
when you are around me, and can not fight, and Cisneros pulled up 
stakes and reerossed the troacha. 

Q. Does the cabinet travel with him? — A. His entire cabinet and 
corps of clerks. xV record of everything is kept that transpires on the 
island, of the civil government, the troops, everything. The impedi- 
menta is something immense. That is why Gomez does not want them 
w r ith him. Gomez does not have any impedimenta; he is strictly a cav- 
alry ofticer, will not allow his officers even a pack mule, and does not 
have anything of the kind himself. 

Q. I understand there are not many roads in Cuba on which large 
bodies of men can move. — A. There is El Key, called the royal roads, 
on which Spaniards move, but they never leave them. The Cuban 
army goes everywhere. The only time General Gomez travels these 
royal roads is when he wants to fight the Spaniards. But the Spaniards 
never leave these roads, except at night, to go into a savannah — level 
piece of land near the road — to go into camp. 

Q. Are there many of these royal roads? — A. Yes; two or three 
extend the whole length of the island. There is a picture — some of the 
Cuban soldiers and myself; you can see that they are not naked. 

Q. Describe the killing of Gordon. — A. When I got to Cienfuegos 
I heard that there was an American who had been killed. I was in dis- 
guise, or at least traveling under a fictitious name, aud had got through 
at Trinidad. I knew Gordon was in that vicinity, and I was afraid it 
was him. He was from New Jersey, and we had been great friends. 
He had been in Gomez's camp a great deal, when he was wounded with 
Maceo. I hung around there and went up to the barracks where the 
soldiers were, and I saw a detail coming in. There was another Amer- 
ican with me by the name of McCartney, a boiler maker. I saw a 
Spanish sergeant get off his horse and he swung over his shoulder a 
saddle blanket, tied at the corners. There was a broad sidewalk run- 
ning by the barracks, and he kept hold of one end and threw the others 
out with a jerk, aud there were either eight or nine pieces of a man's 
body. The head was cut from the body, and some one had run a 
machete into him and disemboweled him. I recognized his head at 
once; he had a very prominent scar on it. The Spanish officers were 
laughing and joking about it, and kicked this limb and that piece, and 
at last, after ten or fifteen minutes, the comandante told the sergeant 
to pick it up aud bury it, and they gathered up the pieces in the blanket 
and went to the rear of the barracks and buried them; covered it with 
earth to the extent of 6 inches, perhaps. 

Q. Do yon know whether Gordon was killed in a fight? — A. All I 
know is from hearsay. A pacifico who claimed that he witnessed it 
told me that they had wounded him, and that he fell off his horse — 
they had laid an ambuscade for him — and as they came up to him he 
said to them, "Take me a prisoner. I am an American, but in the 
24 



370 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Cuban army; take me a prisoner." But they simply laughed at him 
and killed him with their machetes. 

Q. Was that in regular fight? — A. No, sir. 

Q. How many were they! — A. There was but one with him, I pre- 
sume his servant. 

Q. You say this was in Las Villas, Cienfuegos? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. On the present journey? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Coming back to the roads of Cuba and the fact that Cubans pass 
across the country in any direction they please. I presume you mean that 
they can and do pass across the country, having an intimate knowledge 
of it, without reference to roads! — A. The entire island is one network 
of what we would call in this country trails. 

Q. They know these trails and travel anywhere? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. The Spaniards do not? — A. No, sir; they dare not. If they had, 
this war would have been ended long ago. 

Q. They are obliged to move that way? — A. I do not say they are 
obliged to, but they do. 

Q. Outside of the large cities is there any permanent occupation? — 
A. No, sir. The situation on the Island of Cuba is simply this: The 
Spaniards control the large fortified town; the Cubans control the 
country entirely from one end of the island to the other. Without 
exception that is a fact. 

Q. I wish to get some information; I am not certain we ought to pub- 
lish it. You have been speaking about the postal system, and couriers 
that pass from one of these posthouses to another. Is there such a 
thing in Cuba as a coast guard? — A. I do not know but that I am say- 
ing something that may hurt them. There is a continuous guard of 
armed men around that island, called the coast guard. They are fully 
armed with plenty of ammunition. 

Q. About how many men? — A. I presume in that coast guard, about 
5,000 men. They fight if necessary, but it is a complete chain of 
guards. Now, there are several reasons for that guard. The Cuban 
government has a perfect line of communication, as I say, all through 
the island. They also have a perfect line of communication with the 
United States, and that coast guard is for that purpose; one thing 
also is to watch the water for expeditions. Another thing is, our salt 
all comes from this portion of the coast, where they have their salt 
depositories, where it is manufactured. Nearly all the salt is secured 
by boiling down the salt water of the ocean, and from the manufac- 
tories is taken to the interior on pack mules. 

Q. Does that coast guard keep up communication, each with the 
other? — A. Yes, sir; they are around the entire island. In speaking 
about the guard, I do not mean that they are right close together, just 
a few rods apart, but a coast, guard has two or three or four leagues to 
march, when he meets another coast guard, and they march back and 
forth and patrol the coast, on the same system that the English Gov- 
ernment has up here in Manitoba a mounted police. 

Q. I suppose this mounted police or coast guard gives notice of the 
approach of expeditions? — A. Yes, sir. The moment an expedition 
approaches the land, or anywhere near it, notice is immediately sent to 
the nearest force in the interior, and they send a force down to help get 
it up into the interior. 

Q. Where are the Spanish depots of supplies? — A. Santa Clara, 
Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Pinar del Rio, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, all 
seaport towns, and Cardenas. Nuevitas is the seaport town for Puerto 
Principe. 



AFFAIRS IN (JUKA. 371 

Q. Have they any principal depots of supplies in the interior*? — A. 
No, sir; none in the island. We wish there were. 

Q. You have been speaking about the civil government passing 
through this trocha. Point out on the map where this trocha is. — A. 
Here is the trocha [pointing on the map]. 

Q. Why is it not connected with the sea? — A. This map is all wrong. 
There is no such thing as that [indicating point near the north end of 
the eastern trocha]. This trocha should run hereto this point [indicat- 
ing point on the coast touching the water]. The Spanish Government — 
there is an island here that for a long time was secretly used by the 
Cubans; this island right here (Island of Tariugueauo), 7 leagues long. 
The Cuban government established a prefecto on that island, and we 
used to come around here after we crossed the trocha. Gomez has 
three or four places on this trocha he can cross any time, that he is 
keeping, in case of emergency. We used for a long time to come around 
water. If the General wanted to send a man to the United States 
we had boats that we used to send them across to Nassau, until the 
English Government got to arresting them. Now the Spanish Govern- 
ment has built three fortines in the water and one large fort on the 
island. Those trochas do not amount to anything; they are a total fail- 
ure from a strictly military standpoint. The Spaniards are cranks on 
trochas and always have been for ages. You take this trocha clear 
across the island — the western part of the island — there are 18,000 men 
on that trocha. If Maceo wanted to cross any time he could have done 
so, for the reason that they could not have concentrated their men at 
one given point. These 18,000 men are taken away from the army in 
the interior, and are lying idle. Maceo used to say he had 18,000 men 
in prison. I have crossed this trocha myself six times, on commissions. 

By Mr. Clark : 

Q. Are they forts or simply guards? — A. I will give you a descrip- 
tion. In the first place there is a clearing 1 American mile wide 
right across the island of all the shrubbery, trees, and everything taken 
down. Right in the center of that, half mile from each side, they have 
built a line of forts, varying in distances from a quarter of a mile or 
less. In each one they will put 20 or 25 men, or possibly 50. So far, 
so good. Then they have dug a ditch between these forts, 6 feet wide 
and 6 feet deep. Then they have gone to work and put in stakes, slant- 
ingly, about 6 or 8 inches apart, on the out edge of each side of that 
ditch. Then they have run American barbed wire in very close together, 
about 2 inches apart, perhaps 15 of them. Then right on each side of 
this outer stake they have driven a line of stakes slanting in, and they 
have run the same kind of wire, and crossed it again, and virtually 
made a basket network of it. That is their protection to the fort. 
When the Cubans want to cross that trocha they send ahead a detail 
of men at night with sharp pinchers and they cut that wire and make 
a path for the soldiers. 

Q. In this clearing are the logs piled up on each side^ — A. They are 
in certain portions. 

Q. I read that a railroad extended from seacoast to seacoast along 
this clearing? — A. That is not so. There is a railroad along this eastern 
trocha that runs from Moron down a little bit of ways, but it is not 
used. The track is there, but the Cubans would not allow a railroad 
to be operated there. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. The Spaniards must have spent a great deal of money in building 



372 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

these trochas? — A. They have not spent much money. They make 
their soldiers build them, and they don't pay the soldiers. 

Q. I was trying to get at the question of military transportation on 
those trails and royal highways. The Spaniards keep their main depots 
of commissary stores and quartermaster stores in these large central 
points on the seaboard. Do they have any in the interior?— A. No, sir; 
we wish there were. There are certain places through the island where 
the Spaniards have established forts. The rations of the soldiers of 
these forts are taken by convoys, but these forts are all established on 
the royal roads; I never saw one away from the royal road. 

Q. Those commissary depots and quartermaster depots are supplied 
by railways that run between these different points on the coast? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. When an expedition leaves one of these large fortified towns 
to hunt up Gomez and his forces, do they take supply trains with 
them? — A. No, sir; I have never seen a Spanish column come out and 
stay more than five or six days. They only have supplies as they can 
take in their saddlebags. 

Q. Then they go back? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Can they depend on the country for forage? — A. No, sir; they 
never get anything from the country. Well, they do cut down palm 
trees and use their tops, but we can not help that. But they don't get 
any vegetables or beef. Just the moment Gomez gets news that a 
column has left Sancti Spiritus or any other fort he marches toward that 
column and they meet. I have never known Gomez to lie idle when 
there was a Spanish column out; when they meet there is a fight right 
off. At night the Spaniards halt and Gomez retires a mile or so. The 
Spaniards dare not put out a picket at night; their only guard is in 
their camps. Just as quick as dark comes Gomez details an officer 
with 15 or 20 men to keep that camp awake, firing into them all night, 
and then at daybreak Gomez attacks the camp, and so on, and they are 
fighting all day and night, and so on. Whenever they go into camp 
there are 15 or 20 men more keeping them awake all night, and the 
result is that the Spanish troops are exhausted and obliged to return 
to the town for rations or from fatigue. 

Q. The Spanish commanders are obliged to go back for provisions'? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is the Island of Cuba, in the places where not cultivated, heavily 
timbered? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Forests dense?— A. Yes, sir; some of the finest forests the eye 
ever saw; thousands upon thousands of acres of the finest mahogany, 
stretching as far as the eye can see. 

Q. Are the forests dense, thick?— A. Portions are, but no portion 
where the Cubans have not trails through them. 

Q. Those forests furnish excellent protection for what we call guerrilla 
fighting? — A. Yes, sir; if you are going to order a piece of land made 
especially for guerrilla fighting, you could not do better. 

Q. In the mountainous country are the mountains very high? — A. 
In some places they are very high. They resemble the foothills of our 
Rocky Mountains very much. 

Q. There are many places where it is easy to fortify and protect a 
small force against a very large one? — A. There are places in that 
island they could go into and hold the entire Spanish army at bay, a 
very few of them. 

Q. You speak of Garcia having the entire artillery strength of the 
Cuban army. What is the artillery strength? — A. I think 14 cannon. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 373 

That includes those two dynamite guns, that kill at both ends. That 
is about all the strength in artillery. They have not a great deal of 
cannou ammunition ; it is hard to get. You can get it there all right, 
but often these expeditions do not come near to the shore by a league, 
and you have to take it ashore by a rowboat, and it is heavy and hard 
to get ashore. The shells come six to a box, and of these boxes you 
can not put more than two in a rowboat. 

Q. How do they take the ammunition into the interior? — A. On 
mules. 

Q. How is it done? — A. The guns are taken off the carriage and 
packed on mules. Three mules carry the outfit. 

(,). The caissons are carried the same way? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Cau you make time that way? — A. G-arcia's army will make about 
6 or 7 leagues a day. 

Q. Leagues? — A. Yes, sir; 18 to 21 miles. Garcia has the finest 
equipped army on the island. His chief of staff is Geueral Menocal, 
a very good engineer, who speaks very good English. He has organ- 
ized an engineer corps; he has got a signal corps; he has got his cav- 
alry and his artillery, and his engineer corps is pretty fine, too. It is 
right up to date. Anyone who ever told me before I w r ent down there 
that the Cubans had a good engineer corps I would have laughed at 
him, but it is true. 

Q. Has Gomez a good map of the island? — A. Yes, sir; nothing like 
this map; this is entirely wrong. He has maps with each Province 
separate, giving all the little towns aud roads and trails. 

Q. His people being natives, he has as many guides as he wants? — 
A. Yes, sir; we have no trouble there with practicos. 

Q. That is a guide? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Clark : 

Q. What is the relative strength of the Cuban army as regards 
infantry and cavalry ? — A. About three-quarters of it is infantry. Gomez 
is strictly a cavalry officer; infantry moves too slow for him. He is a 
good deal such a person as General Custer was, although I did not 
know General Custer. Infantry and artillery he can not march with 
fast enough. 

Q. How is his health ? — A. He has not seen a sick day since I have 
been there. To illustrate, General Gomez called me the morning I left 
there, and said " I want to speak to you. There have been false reports, 
and some may say to you that I have been sick." Gomez is a man over 
70 years old. He put his hand on the pommel of his saddle and vaulted 
right over, and put his other hand on and vaulted right back again. 
He said to me, " You do that," and I told him that I had business else- 
where. "A sick man can not do that," he said. The army numbered 
a little over 40,000, and they can put in the field a little over 60,000 
men. Of course every expedition landed there would increase the 
numerical strength. 

Q. When you speak of 40,000 men armed, are they well armed? — A. 
We consider the Beinington a pretty good arm, and that is what they 
have, except General Gomez's escort, who are armed with repeating 
rifles, nearly all armed with Mauser rifles, captured from soldiers who 
have come in or been captured. There is hardly a day that Spanish sol- 
diers do not come in aud surrender. When I was on my way here I met 
14 soldiers who were on their way to surrender. The Spanish soldiers 
fight as though they had been lassoed and brought there and forced to 
fight against their will. The soldier does not fight with any energy or 



374 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

vita. They say "What do we care for this Island of Cuba; it never 
does us any good, or never will." But they are forced to fight, and 
they are mostly boys from 16 to 21 years of age. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Do those boys do that butchery? — A. Under command of their 
officers. They are well disciplined. I will say that much for the Spanish 
soldiery. They are the best disciplined soldiers I ever saw. I have seen 
a Spanish officer kick a man and throw him down and jump on him 
with both feet, and he never say a word or growl or grumble. 

Q. I will ask you one question as to General Gomez's character. 
What do you think of him as a man of talent, energy, honor, humanity, 
and courage? — A. He is well educated, has done a great deal of study- 
ing and reading in his life, a man that is firm, stanch, true friend, a 
bad enemy, but a just man at all times and on all occasions. I think 
that is General Gomez's character to a letter. I would not want him 
for an enemy. 

After examining and correcting my deposition as above, I sign the 
same under oath. 

Wm. D. Smith. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA 375 



STATEMENT OF GEORGE BRONSON REA ON THE 11TH DAY OF 

JUNE, 1897. 

Mr. Re a was sworn by Mr. Davis, chairman of the committee. 
In the absence of Senator Clark, Senator Davis acted as a member 
of the subcommittee. 

By Mr. Morgan: 

Q. Please state your name, age, autl place of birth. — A. George 
Bronsou Rea; 28 years old; born in Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Q. What is your occupation? — A. Newspaper correspondent; also 
electrical engineer. 

Q. Have you ever been in the Island of Cuba 1 ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When did you go there, and for what purpose? — A. I went there 
first in 1890, to take charge of the Matanzas electric-light plant; was 
on the island about four and a half years, until the breaking out of 
the war, engaged in patting up electric-light plants and machinery. 

Q. When did you leave there? — A. About two months ago, finally. 
On the 18th of January last year I went to the field as correspondent 
of the New York Herald and joined General Gomez. 

Q. Where did you find Gomez? — A. I found Gomez at the sugar 
estate of San Antonio de Pulido at Alcpiizar. 

Q. What province ? — A. Havana. 

Q. Have you been with him continuously until you left the island? — 
A. No, sir; was with him about one month, then joined the forces ot 
Antonio Maceo. I joined after the first campaign in Pinar del Rio, 
stayed with him some time (six months), and then returned to Havana, 
and, watching my chance, managed to slip through the Spanish lines, 
and came home in October last. 

Q. Where did you embark? — A. At Havana. I went back in Jan- 
uary of this year as war correspondent of the New York Herald, and 
came home about the middle of April. 

Q. At what do you estimate the force of Gomez — I mean all the 
forces of the insurgents in Cuba — at the time you left the lines? — A. It 
is a rather difficult thing to figure accurately, but with a little compi- 
lation a very fair estimate could be made. At the time I left Gomez 
he had about 150 men under his personal command. 

Q. His escort? — A. Yes, sir; his escort and the Victoria regiment. 
The}' each comprised about 80 men. The escort has about 80, aud the 
Victoria regiment also about 80, approximately. 

In the Province of Santa Clara his forces are divided into two divi- 
sions and various regiments — in one minute I can give the total accu- 



376 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

rately. This recent campaign of Gomez in the eastern part of La 
Villas has been carried out by the first division of what they call the 
fourth army corps, divided into three brigades: The brigade of 
Remedios, about 800 men; the brigade of Sancti Spiritus, about 600 
men; and the brigade of Trinidad, about 400 men. There are three 
more brigades, composing the second division: That of Cienfuegos, 
about 500 men; the brigade of Sagna, about 400; and the brigade of 
Villa Clara, probably 500 more. That is all in that province. In the 
province of Matanzas there are very few insurgents ; indeed, I think 
they could be safely estimated at about 400 or 500 men in the whole 
province. In the province of Havana, probably at the present time 
there are 2,000 insurgents. Last November — or October, I meant to 
say — I was down in the province of Havana about one month or a 
month and a half, and then there were about that number, and the 
force has not augmented. Contrary to all stories as to their number, 
the force has not increased. I left Maceo in Pin ar del Rio with 6,000 
men. The number of men in the eastern part of the island is — what I 
have said already in regard to the western part can be relied on, but in 
the eastern part of the island I would not like to give any testimony to 
be depended upon as accurate — as to my opinion as to the number of 
men, there are, I should judge, probably about 4,000 or 5,000 men in 
the two eastern provinces. 

Q. What provinces'? — A. Santiago de Cuba and Camaguey. The 
total I have not figured, but in my estimation they do not exceed 
25,000 armed men on the island. 

Q. Under whose command is the eastern army? — A. The department 
of the east is under command of Calixto Garcia, divided into three corps, 
and subdivided into brigades and regiments. 

Q. You have never been with Garcia ? — A. No, sir. I never have 
been in the eastern provinces. I have been all through Piuar del Rio, 
Matanzas, and Havana 

Q. As a soldier? — A. No, sir; as a correspondent of the New York 
Herald. 

Q. You were not engaged in fighting? — A. No, sir; but I have wit- 
nessed some eighty fights, not to mention skirmishes, and have had two 
bullets through me. I was with Maceo during that second western cam- 
paign, and joined Gomez after the invasion. 

Q. You was not with Maceo when he was killed ? — A. No, sir: I was 
in New York, but I have seen those who crossed the trocha with him 
and witnessed his death — Gordon, who was killed, Pedro Diaz, and 
the servant of Maceo — all who knew most of the details. 

Q. How did you get through the trocha? — A. By way of the swamp. 
I was just showing a picture to Senator Davis — as I saw you were 
interested in Mr. Bonsai's description of the torcha — I wrote an article 
last year in regard to it. We were two days in the swamp waiting to 
cross, and finally, under cover of darkness, we managed to elude the 
vigilance of the sentries and sneak across. There is a great deal writ- 
ten about that trocha in Pinar del Rio, but there is not one man in a 
dozen who has ever seen it. 

(Mr. Rea here exhibited to the subcommittee a drawing showing a 
portion of the southern part of the trocha.) 

That is the part of the trocha that goes through the Majana swamp. 
Here is a map I drew of that country down there from actual experi- 
ence. The trocha runs from Mariel south to this swamp, across the 
narrowest x>art of the island, about 21 miles, or 7 Cuban leagues. From 
Mariel to Guanajay the trocha runs along the macadamized road, which 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 377 

they Lave taken as a basis from which to operate and on which to 
build. From Guauajay to Artimisa it also runs along the macadamized 
way, and they have these forts scattered all along, and in front of the 
road to the trocha (the vanguard, as the Spanish say) there is barbed 
wire fence, and still farther in front they have sown cactus and other 
thorny plants to prevent cavalry crossing. From Artemisa south, 
which is probably the strongest part of the line, the trocha leaves the 
macadamized road. The road passes through Mangas and continues to 
Candelaria. The trocha runs south through the sugar estates of 
Waterloo, Sn. Leon, Neptuno, and Maravilla. Neptuno is the head- 
quarters of the southern division. Here is where it enters the Majana 
swamp. This is tlie only place where the insurgents have ever crossed 
that trocha. I can say, in this part of the trocha 

By Mr. Davls : 
Q. Which part, south part or north part? — A. From Mariel to ISTep- 
fcuno — the entire part on dry ground — there has never been an insur- 
gent force or party known to cross, except two who made a dash and 
crossed it. In this part (the southern) the crossing is made in the 
swamp through the mud and water. I was in mud and slush up to my 
neck, and Maceo crossed the trocha in this little bay (of Mariel) in 
boats, the same as Sylvester Scovel did when he crossed westward. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Going east or west? — A. Going east. (Here I referred to my own 
trip.) 

Q. Where was Maceo when you joined? — A. In Havana. 

Q. When ?— A. In February, 1896. 

B. Did you cross the trocha with him to Pinar del Bio? — A. The 
trocha was not made when we crossed into Pinar del Bio. 

Q. Was it in process of construction ? — A. No, sir; they started to 
construct it after Maceo was in the province, with the idea of catching 
him in a trap, so that he could not get out. 

Q. How many men did Maceo take? — A. About 5,000 men when he 
entered Pinar del Rio. 

Q. Where are those men now, or when you left the island? — A. I 
suppose most of them are there. 

Q. In Pinar del Bio? — A. Yes, sir; perhaps some of them crossed 
the trocha and got back. I suppose there may be 5,000 of them there 
now, of the 6,000 he had with him. 

(Note. — There was probably 1,000 there nnder Bermudez, Sotomayor, and others 
when he entered.) 

Q. You say they got across the trocha through the swamp? — A. Yes, 
sir; I know they couldn't get through any other way. 

Q. Did you cross that trocha? — A. Yes, sir; I crossed that trocha. 

Q. Through the swamp? — A. When we entered Pinar del Bio we did 
not cross through the swamp. There was no necessity of doing so. 
The trocha was not established at that time. 

Q. How many men were with you when you crossed? — A. About 19. 

Q. Who were you going to report to? — A. I was trying to get home. 

Q. After you got through, you did go home? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. By what route? — A. I came through the southern part of the 
Province of Havana to San Jose de las Lajas. I was a mouth and a 
half in the Province of Havana before I saw my opportunity to get to 
Havana. 

Q. Your opportunity to get through the Spanish lines or the Cuban 
lines? — A. Through the Spanish lines. 



378 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. You witnessed some battles after you got back ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Who was in command! — A. General Aguirre. 

Q. Where is he now; was he killed? — A. He is dead. He died a 
natural death in December. 

Q. How near did be approach Havana while you was in his com- 
pany? — A. About "20 miles. 

Q. What place? — A. At Tivo Tivo; between San Miguel and Oampo 
Florida. 

Q. About what time was it when you left Aguirre and came on 
home? — A. About the 1st of October. 

Q. When did you go back to Cuba? — A. In January of this year; 
left here on the 13th of January. 

Q. Have you seen Gomez since you went back? — A. Yes. sir. 

Q. Where did yon meet him? — A. When he was besieging the town 
of Arroyo Blanco, on the 28th of January. 

Q. How long did you stay? — A. I stayed with Gomez one day; wrote 
my dispatches, and got them off, and was back there again in about 
two weeks, and was with him three different times afterwards. 

Q. How did you get through the Spanish lines on these different 
occasions? — A. The first time I started for the field I left Havana with 
the credentials of the New York Herald in my pocket, and also a 
military pass signed by General Arderius, which I have in my pocket 
now, giving me permission to go with the Spanish columns. It did not 
say which columns, but only said the columns in operation in the field. 
The last time it was simply a question of luck in evading Spanish vigi- 
lance, because the Spanish spies were after me very hot. I managed 
to shake them off at Trinidad, under pretext of going to a sugar estate. 

Q. Were the Cuban spies ever after you when you left their command 
to go into Havana? — A. Xot that I know of. 

Q. You came and went, so far as they are concerned, with freedom? — 
A. Yes, sir; so far as I know. 

Q. As far as the Spanish were concerned, you were watched? — A. 
Yes, sir; I suppose, if caught, I should have suffered the fate of Govin. 

Q. What did they do with him? — A. They chopped him up. 

Q. Have you any knowledge of that? — A. Yes, sir; no personal 
knowledge, but I saw his grave four days after he was killed — no, it 
was in the neighborhood of two weeks after. 

Q. Where is your information derived % — A. I derived my informa- 
tion from two persons who were with him; one Lieutenant Colonel 
Mirabal and the other Colonel Gordon — both dead now. They were in 
a fight between Major Valencia, who had 60 or SO men, and the Span- 
iards under General Ochoa from Jaruco. It took place near the sugar 
estate of Jiquiabo, and, as generally the case in a little fight, the Cubans, 
after firing a few volleys, got out of the way, and Govin, never having 
been in a fight before, found himself alone and the Spaniards very close 
to him. They told me that Govin, when he saw he was to be captured, 
walked forward to meet the Spanish column to surrender, hoping his 
American citizenship would help him in this case; but it- seems that 
his papers— parties told me who said they were watching and saw it 
done (but I do not attach much importance to the statement myself, 
because I never saw a Cuban that would stay near a Spanish column 
long enough to watch much) — but they said the papers were torn up 
and thrown in his face, and he was tied to another man and taken to 
San Mateo and kept there all night, and the next morning as they were 
lead out to march to Jaruco he was untied from the other prisoner and 
fastened to a tree and chopped up with machetes, and two days after, his 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 379 

body being left there, Lieutenaut-Colonel Mirabal and Valencia who 
were looking, as they generally do, for anything left on the ground, or 
for dead people, found the body and carried and buried it at the end of 
a potato Held, which spot they showed me. I have no doubt Govin was 
foully dealt with, and I have no doubt the cause was that he was an 
American. 

Q. What was Govin — a correspondent? — A. This is information I 
have heard — 1 never met Govin, and while I am in sympathy with him, 
1 understand he came with this expedition, and while he had these 
papers as correspondent of the -Jacksonville Equator-Democrat, he was 
nominally an insurgent, and from what I can understand he carried a 
revolver. 

Q. Did you carry a revolver while there 1 ? — A. No, sir; excuse me, I 
did earn a revolver for about two weeks, but never used it. 1 obtained 
it lor one of my servants, and when I had carried it a couple of weeks 
I gave it to him. 

Q. Where were you? — A. In Pinar del Rio. 

Q. Did you carry it for protection against the Spaniards or against 
the Cubans'? — A. 1 never carried it for pi otection. So far as that goes, 
or far as the Cubans were concerned, I was treated very well, and as 
far as the Spaniards were concerned, I could get out of the way when 
they came by following or keeping up with the Cubans. 

Q. You never engaged in hostilities at all? — A. 1 never engaged in 
hostilities; no, sir. I directed Gomez once how to burn out a locomo- 
tive, and that is all. I took no actual hand in it; I told the old man 
how they could do it, and men — Cubans — went to work and did it. That 
is as far as my experience in helping the insurgents has ever gone. 

Q. What do you mean by burning out a locomotive — destroying it? — 
A. Yes, sir. If the water gets low and the fire is kept going, it will 
burn out the tubes and then it will uot stand the pressure. 

Q. He had captured the locomotive, and wanted to destroy it? — A. 
Yes. sir. lie asked me how to do it — he knew I was an electrical 
engineer — and I gave him the benefit of my experience. 

Q. I >id you give him the benefit of your experience in tiring dynamite 
shells?— A. No, sir. 

Q. Y"ou knew how to do it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did he ever ask for your assistance? — A. Maceo intimated as 
much to me once or twice, but I thought I was not there to do that; I 
was there as a neutral, and it was not my business. They have had 
a few foreigners come there to show them how to blow up railroad 
trains and use dynamite cartridges, and they have treated them badly, 
in such a way as to disgust them and drive them away. 

Q. I understand from your statement that both Gomez and Maceo 
inspected your neutrality. — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did not compel you to do anything you did not wish to? — A. No, 
sir. 

Q. Who were these men who were badly treated ? — A. I remember 
the powder maker — I do not know anything of him myself: this is 
hearsay. A powder maker came to Gomez. He may have been an 
adventurer, but he was well versed in explosives and could have been 
of great benefit to the Cubans. I know nothing of what was done, but 
he was disgusted and had to get away. There was also a Frenchman 
from Havana, who came out to manufacture dynamite, and finally he 
did make a couple of bombs and wanted to blow up a railway train, 
but they were jealous because he was going to get some glory and only 
sent a small force of 18 meu to assist him. He exploded the bombs, 



380 AFFAIKS IN CUBA. 

and when the engine went off the track they had a couple of hand 
bombs which they were to throw into the train, but when the engine 
was derailed and the Spanish soldiers poured out of the cars the 
Cubans got scared and ran away and left the Frenchman alone. He 
got away safe, but was disgusted, and left them. 

Q. That was the bad treatment? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. There was no personal bad treatment 1 ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Twenty men were not expected to capture any considerable force, 
were they? — A. No, sir; but they had two big hand bombs prepared — it 
was in a cut in the railway — and as the first bomb was exploded and 
the train went off the track and the soldiers began to come out they 
were to throw these bombs and blow the soldiers to pieces. 

Q. You said that the Frenchman was not captured. — A. No, sir; he 
got away. 

Q. A while ago you stated, if I understood you, that if these men, 
the Spaniards, had caught you while you were slipping through the 
lines they would have treated you as they did Govin. — A. Yes, sir; if 
they had caught me in the field, I believe they would. I was virtually 
an insurgent, as I had violated their military laws. Most any army 
would have treated a man in that way. They might not have killed 
me, but might have sent me to Morro Castle. When General Weyler 
came to the island as Captain-General, he issued an order that all corre- 
spondents should be prohibited from going into the field. I was in the 
field already, but he had such a bad reputation that one would feel a 
little bit uneasy about it after getting into his hands. I rode into 
Havana on the stage coach, and as luck would have it nobody said 
anything to me. 

Q. You road into Havana on a stage coach? — A. That was the first 
time — last October. I got on the stage coach that runs to San Jose de 
las Lajas, about 20 miles out — I should say 20 kilometers. 

Q. Was that in the Spanish lines'? — A. It is called the Spanish 
lines, but the highway runs through the open country. I got on the 
coach at the home of a friend of mine 

Q. Where are the Spanish lines? — A. The Spaniards do not have 
any force in the open country. They have their garrisons in the 
town 

Q. You mean at the fortified towns? — A. There are no unfortified 
towns. 

Q. The trocha is in the Spanish lines? — A. Yes, sir. What is under- 
stood as the Spanish lines. The Spaniards have the forts and the 
fortified towns. All the towns not fortified have been burned and 
destroyed either by the Cubans or by the Spaniards. Cubans started 
the ball rolling by burning several towns, and the Spaniards evacuated 
many of the small towns that they considered were no value to them to 
hold and burned them. 

Q. You only know that definition of the Spanish lines? — A. The only 
definition is in the fortified towns and along the trocha. 

Q. Along the trocha? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Outside the fortified towns the country would be denominated as 
in the Cuban lines? — A. Hardly, as the Cubans have no lines. The 
Cuban lines depend entirely on the close proximity of the Spanish col- 
umn. The Cuban is here to-day and there to-morrow. The Cuban is 
in this place, and if they hear of a Spanish force coming they cut it and 
get out. 

Q. That applies also to the Sanish? — A. Yes, sir; it applies equally 
to one as to the other. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 381 

Q. The country is disputed ground? — A. Yes, sir; neither one is able 
to hold it. 

Q. You would say that the provinces in the east of Cuba are in the 
Cuban lines? — A. Yes, sir; in this way: In the campaign of General 
Weyler last year he paid all his attention to Antonio Maceo, and con- 
tinued to do so until recently, or up to January. He started in to 
annihilate Antonio Maceo, and it took up the best part of his time and 
attention. When he got through there (he did not pacify the country, 
the insurgents are there to a large extent yet), then he took up Gomez 
in the province of La Villas. That left the province of Santiago de 
Cuba and Camaguey to one side, but if Weyler starts to operate in 
those provinces the conditions there will be the same as in the west. 

Q. Until he does they are not the same ? — A. He has recently started. 
I picked up a paper the other morning stating he had issued the recon 
centration order for the eastern provinces. There is one thing, the 
provinces of Matanzas, Pinar del Bio, and Havana are largely under 
the Spanish control, because they are aided by the railroads. They 
have means of transportation and communication, and little towns are 
scattered all through this country. Every little black spot on this map 
represents a fort. In the provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Camaguey 
there are no such towns. Even before the war it was a very sparsely 
settled country. There are no railroads, practically. A small railroad 
runs from Puerto Principe to Nuevitas, and one runs up to Sancti 
Spiritus from Tunas, and there are but a few small towns scattered 
through these provinces. The large towns of importance have been 
fortified and successfully held by the Spaniards, but there was no 
necessity of expending a large amount of money in places where it 
was not worth the expense. 

By Mr. DAVIS : 

Q. Why do they not do it in one part of the island as well as in 
another? — A. That is because they have the railroads to help them in 
the west. 

Q. In one place they can and in another place they can not? — A. 
They owe their superiority to the fact that they can readily communi- 
cate in the western provinces. At every other town or so there is sta- 
tioned a Spanish operating column that goes into the field looking up 
the insurgents. These operating columns are established about 10 or 
12 miles apart, and they operate each in its own zone, and when they 
find an insurgent force, by the sound of the firing the other columns are 
attracted to the scene, and the Cubans can not stay and fight, because 
they would be annihilated if they did. In the eastern provinces the 
Spanish can not do that, because the towns are small and few and far 
between. Where Gomez is operating at present there is no town except 
Arroyo Blanco, 14 leagues from Sancti Spiritus, and the Spaniards are 
compelled to come out in force because they have no place to rest 
until they reach another large town, and the Cubans have a chance to 
harass them by bushwhacking and constantly harassing them. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. How many fights have you been in, did you say? — A. More or 
less, about 80; not counting little shooting scraps. 

< v >. How many? — A. About 80, not counting shooting scraps. 

Q. In how many battles have the Cubans held the ground? — A. I 
have only seen the Cubans advance twice. 

Q. I only speak of holding the ground. — A. They may hold the ground 
temporarily — for one minute or ten minutes or fifteen. 



382 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. I mean after the battle is over. — A. They generally come back 
after the Spaniards give up the pursuit. 

Q. After the pursuit? — A. Yes, sir. I was with Antonio Maceo in 
those tights around. Tapia, and we had about a dozen of them, hot and 
heavy. He would wait until the Spaniards came up, and from one hill- 
top he would hold them back until they grew too strong for him and 
then retreat to the next hilltop, going back and back until the Span- 
iards would give it up after a while and retire, getting tired of the 
conflict. 

Q. When they got tired, Maceo would come back*? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Who would win the battle 1 ? — A. I would call it a draw. There is 
one strange thing about it; I rarely saw a Cuban killed. The largest 
loss suffered by the Cubans was 15 killed and 84 wounded. 

Q. When was that? — A. At the night attack on La Palina, in Pinar 
del Rio, March 31 of last year. 

Q. What was the loss of Spaniards in these same fights? — A. In the 
ordinary fighting, very little difference. 

Q. In the heavy fighting? — A. I think the heaviest loss of the 
Spaniards was in the battle of Cacarajicara, in Pinar del Eio. 

Q. Well? — A. Their loss was variously estimated at from four to five 
hundred killed and wounded. 

Q. What has been the comparative loss? — A. About equal. Probably 
the Spaniards have suffered a little more loss, owing to a certain reason 
in regard to the bullets. The Cubans are armed almost entirely with 
the Remington or these little sporting rifles, using the old leaden bullet, 
which, when it strikes a bone, "mushrooms" and causes a fracture, and 
with the Spaniards when sent to the hospital it is a grave case. With 
the Cubaus it is different, as far as their wounds are concerned. The 
Spaniards use the Mauser rifle, and these bullets when they go through 
do not break or injure the bone. I had a wound where the bullet just 
scraped the bone. 

Q. Did you go to the hospital? — A. No, sir. I have seen a man shot 
through the temple, and he is living, but lost his sight. It does not 
shatter the bone as the other bullet does. I think that will explain to 
a great extent why the Cubans have had so very few killed. And then 
the Spaniards shoot very wild. The Cubans are very bad shots and the 
Spaniards are worse, if anything. The Spaniards fire entirely by 
volley and at the word of command, the Cubans at will. The Spaniard 
goes into the fight with 150 rounds of ammunition, and the Cubans are 
lucky if they have ten. I have seen them with but two, and that in one 
of the largest fights they had. The Cubans claim they had but 1,200 
rounds among 1,500 men, and yet the Spaniards counted it as one of the 
biggest fights of the war. The Captain-General was in command. Gen. 
Sabas Marin was Captain-General in the interim when Campos went to 
Spaiu and before Weyler reached the island. At the present time the 
Cubans are fairly well supplied with ammunition. 

Q. What is your estimate of the number of troops Spain has put into 
this war? — A. I had no means of knowing, except the statement of the 
Spanish that they number about 125,000 men. 

Q. That is, troops imported from Spain? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They had other troops there? — A. Yes, sir; the guerrillas, or 
volunteers, and the guarda civil. 

Q. What is their strength? — A. I don't know. 

Q. What is their reputed strength? — A. I could not tell. 

Q. Five thousand, or 10,000, or 20,000? — A. The guerrillas alone, 
probably 10,000. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 383 

Q. That would make 135,000. Now about the guard? — A. They are 
included in the army. 

Q. There have been 135,000 men put in there, then? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Well armed? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. All the artillery they can take care of? — A. Yes, sir; there are 
very few columns that do not have artillery with them, especially moun- 
tain artillery; but my experience has been that the artillery was of no 
account. I have been with Maceo when they have shelled us for hours 
and uobody hurt. 1 have only seen two men killed by the explosion of 
shells during my experience. 

Q. TIm\\ sheltered themselves behind trees, elevations of the ground, 
etc.' — A. No, sir; I think it is because the gunners are at fault and 
the explosive power of the bursting charge is deficient. The radius of 
explosion is small, probably not over 25 feet. 

Q. Do they use shell or shrapnel? — A. Both. We had about a hun- 
dred from the train that was captured at Pozo Kedondo by Pedro Diaz, 
and they were shrapnel with percussion fuses. 

Q. Can you account — this war has been going on for two years and 
a half or more? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have you any way of accounting for the fact that the Cubans- 
according to your estimate being only 25,000 strong — have been able to 
prevent the 135,000 Spaniards from running over and destroying 
them? — A. You can not lick a man if he will not let you, or if he runs 
away from you all the time. 

Q. It is bounded by the sea on every side, and that is patrolled by 
the navy of Spain? — A. There are a great many hills and woods, etc. 
A body of 1,000 men does not take up much space. That is the reason 
Gomez has divided his men into bodies of about 150 men, so he can get 
into the woods. 

Q. If his force does not shrink considerably, how long can he protract 
this struggle? — A. As long as he has anything to eat. 

Q. What are his resources for feeding his forces? — A. When I left 
the Province of La Villas, two months ago, the eastern part, where 
Gomez is, had quite a large number of cattle, owing to the reason that 
it is a grazing country, quite "the reverse to the western provinces, 
which are devoted to the culture of cane and tobacco. The eastern 
provinces of La Villas and Camaguey are devoted to cattle and graz- 
ing, the eastern part of La Villas especially. While he had plenty of 
cattle to last him, economically, for about a year, he had no potatoes, 
no vegetables, of any account. 

Q. At what place had he none? — A. At Los Hoyos and Los Barra- 
cones. 

Q. That is west of the trocha, in the eastern part of La Villas? — A. 
La Villas is not a province. When I speak of La Villas I mean the 
province of Santa Clara; it is commonly called La Villas by the Cubans. 

< L >. I am speaking of the resources of the provinces under Gomez's 
and Garcia's commands. What supply of provisions have they? — A. 
I must give you that information just as I have it from people in the 
held — people who have come from there. In the province of Santiago 
de Cuba the cattle have almost entirely disappeared; in fact, I learned 
that before I left Cuba last year the cattle were almost gone. They 
never had many cattle there. It is a hilly and mountainous country, 
almost all coffee plantations, and the insurgents are living on yucca, 
malauga, and other roots. We find the reverse in the province of 
Camaguey or Puerto Principe. There they have plenty of cattle, owing 
to the fact that before the war it was a grazing country, and cattle was 



384 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

the principal support of the people. There are plenty of cattle still 
that could be made, with economy, to last a long - time. 

Q. Under whose control? — A. Under both Spanish and Cuban; that 
is, the Spanish around Puerto Principe have a large number corralled, 
but the majority are in the hands of the Cubans. 

Q. Now, east ? — A. in the eastern part of the province of Santa Clara 
there are still quite a number of cattle and a few vegetables. 

Q. Farther east? — A. Farther west? 

Q. No; farther east. — A. Farther east? You mean west. I have 
taken the two eastern provinces. First comes Santiago de Cuba, Puerto 
Principe, Santa Clara, and then Matanzas. 

Q. Santa Clara, then. — A. In the eastern portion there are plenty of 
cattle, but no vegetables. There is a dividing line about the town of 
Sancti Spiritus. To the west of that we find a range of mountains 
called the Trinidad Hills. These hills have always been supposed to 
be a stronghold for the insurgents, and that they had a large quantity 
of vegetables planted there. I was under that impression until I trav- 
eled through these hills. But, owing to the fact that Gomez had taken 
all the men out of the district, the Spaniards had invaded them and 
marched around at their pleasure, and when I made my last trip through 
the hills I could get nothing to eat — practically nothing to eat — just 
beef, and that had to be taken from the corrals near the Spanish forts. 
This statement is borne out by Captain Smith in his statement to me 
that in the camp of Rodriguez at Polavieja, situated near Trinidad, he 
had to eat mule steak, which shows that the cattle has practically given 
out. In the northern part of this province, near Sagua la Grande, 
there are very few cattle, and their chief subsistence is vegetables. 

Q. Let us go to the west. — A. The province of Matanzas. I have 
very good authority in stating — I have it from the last man who made 
that trip across the province in February, Maj. Charles Gordon, an 
American, on whose word I place every reliance. He told me that in 
the province of Matanzas there are practically no insurgents. There 
are very few and they have taken refuge in the swamps, and subsist 
chiefly on a species of jutia or raccoon, and crocodile-tail steaks; have 
no vegetables and no cattle. Whenever they wanted any cattle they 
had to go to the nearest Spanish town and take them from the Span- 
iards, and the same with vegetables. I have every reason to believe 
this, because in the province of Matanzas the insurgents have been 
very negligent in looking after their commissaries. They have been 
very wasteful, and besides they can not establish prefectos. 

Q. Why? — A. Because the country is very open. They have a few 
in the swamps, but in the provinces of Havana and Matanzas it is 
practically impossible to hold a prefectora. 

Q. Tou say it is open? — A. It is the open country of that island. 

Q. Because the Spaniards hold the towns? — A. Because the towns 
are close together and the Spanish columns are continually on the 
move and there are no hills and nooks where they can hide themselves 
in any force, except along the southern coast in these swamps, which 
are terrible places to live in. The insurgents can not hold out in the 
province of Matanzas a day. 

Q. Is it not a fact that they are holding out? — A. Well, if you want 
to immerse yourself in the swamp and stay there you are holding out, 
but you are not doing anything. 

Q. But they are still there? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. The Spanish have not driven them out? — A. They have driven 
them off the open country where they ought to be. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 385 

Q. Why ought they to be there? — A. In order to subsist. 

Q. They do not die, do they? — A. They are pretty sick; some of them 
with fever. 

Q. They are sick with fever? — A. Yes, sir; in those swamps, the best 
acclimated man will get pretty sick. 

Q. Was you sick? — A. Yes, sir; after being there awhile; that was 
what kept me back a time. 

Q. You say you had to go to the cultivated zones to get vegetables? — 
A. Yes, sir; in the province of Alatanzas. 

Q. Did they get them? — A. Yes, sir; sometimes. Wheuever they 
get hungry some of them go after them. 

Q. It would be difficult to get the vegetables if the people did not 
have them? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is it not in those towns and around those zones that the people 
are stated by various authorities to be starving to death? — A. Yes, sir; 
I believe so. 

Q. How do the Cubans get the provisions, then? — A. Because, I 
think, the starvation business has been exaggerated and overestimated. 

Q. Who do you think has exaggerated it? — A. I think they have 
taken two or three small towns as an example of all the stations. The 
boniato, or sweet potato, will, if thrust into the ground, grow by itself. 
I have seen a field of them trampled into the ground by the Spanish 
cavalry, and in two or three months they have been there again just 
as plenty. Like the sweet potato 

Q. You think on account of the great propagating power of the 
sweet potato you can not believe the statements of those other 
men A. Oh, no. 

Q. You think it has been exaggerated, then? — A. Yes, sir. 

(). Have you been in these stations? — A. Yes; I have been at Trini- 
dad, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Colon, Jovellanos, and Matauzas on my 
trip to Gomez last January. 

Q. Why do you think it is exaggerated if you have not seen them? — 
A. Because of my knowledge of the country. 

Q. If the people are hemmed in in the towns, and the order author- 
izing these zones of cultivation has been revoked, and they are ordered 
to be shot if they attempt it, you would not suppose the people would 
get much by goiug after them, even if the potatoes were plenty?— A. 
No, sir; I don't suppose they would. 

Q. Suppose the worst for the Cubans, can not they plant bouiatos; 
and when not assailed by the Spaniards can not they live? — A. Yes, 
sir; the3' can, and to a certain extent they do, but in the province of 
La Til las they have shown a wasteful spirit by eating all they have 
to-day and never giving a thought to to-morrow. 

Q. Maybe they want to prevent Weyler from getting it? — A. The 
Cubans recognize, too, that they must have enough to eat if they want 
to wait until the United States intervenes and recognizes them. 

Q. That is a pretty safe reliance? — A. I should think so. 

Q. Pinar del Bio — how did you subsist there with 6,000 men? — A. 
I left Pinar del Bio last year, last October. The northern part of the 
province, from Mariel to a point called La Mulata, cattle had about 
disappeared. There were a few corralled in the hills by the Cubans. 
Vegetables had completely disappeared, except those planted around 
the Spanish forts. The cane fields had been burnt; there was not a 
stalk of cane standing. It was a devastated country in every sense 
of the word. This was not done by the Cubans, but by the Spaniards, 
to take away the fodder for the Cuban cavalry, and the fire spread 
25 



386 AFFAIRS IN CUBA 

in all directions; to the thickets, and palm groves, and everywhere 
else. Antonio Maceo sent every three nights an armed force of men 
with the impedimenta (two or three hundred unarmed men) down near 
Cabanas to bring the beniatos out, or, in lieu of that, they went to the 
zones of cultivation near the large fortified sugar factories La Linza 
and Bramales, between Cabanas and Pallia. Honda, where there were 
also a few vegetables. In through the hills, at that time, Antonio 
Maceo had quite a large number of vegetables planted. He was a very 
practical man, who saw ahead more than any of the rest, and he 
took all the impedimenta, probably 1,500 men, and he set them to work 
planting sweet potatoes, so lie must have had quite a sufficient supply 
to last him that campaign in the hills. Along the southern coast, or 
the part of Piuar del Rio lying south of the Cordillera, there was quite 
a supply of cattle, and, in fact, all south of the railway was grazing 
ground, and large cattle ranches were scattered throughout the country, 
but I should not think there was many cattle left at the present time, 
because the policy of Weyler, when he found that he could not corner 
the Cubans, was to destroy their means of subsistence; and all cattle 
found in the hills and on the plains have been killed. 

Q. About how many troops had Weyler? — A. About 40,000. 

Q. And Maceo about 0,000?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. It appears the Spaniards, then, were engaged in raising potatoes 
to feed Maceo's command, principally 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; in this case. 

Q. Whenever they got out of potatoes they sent out and got them 
from under the fort? — A. That is light. 

Q. If] understood you correctly, there was never a battle ground 
that Maceo's command did not return to after the battle was over! — 
A. No, sir; there were several occasions where he came back, espe- 
cially in that country of Pinar del Eio, where the hills are. In the 
open country he never came back. I was with Antonio Maceo wheu 
he returned after the first invasion of Pinar del liio and had so many 
big lights in Havana Province. There was where I joined him, and 
during the month or morel was with him in this section there was a 
constant succession of fights, one after the other, and we could not come 
back and camp where we were the day before. It was simply one con- 
tinuous skirmish, day after day, moving from place to place. 

Q. Take the country 30 miles around Havana, in every direction, is 
that much devastated"? — A. I can only speak of the country lying to 
the east of Havana; I do not know much about that to the west. 

Q. How is that ? — A. Because I have not been near enough to Havana 
on the western side to appreciate the condition of the country. In the 
country to the east of Havana — I do not think there is any value to this 
testimony at present, because it covers my experience last October, and 
that is a little too old. At that time it was not devastated in any sense 
of the word, or if we compare it to Pinar del Eio. Fine houses were 
there yet, large sugar estates were still standing, and the majority of 
the people were well-to-do farmers, raising crops and sending their 
products to market; in fact, I came into Havana from the house of a 
friend who has a plantation near San Jose de las Lajas, an American 
citizen. I can not say that country was greatly devastated then, and, 
at present, I do not know the real condition. 

Q. How far is Matanzas from Havana ? — A. About 60 miles. 

Q. How far is Guanabacoa ? — A. I should judge it was not more than 
3 miles, as it is within sight of Havana, and you can see the church 
towers. 

Q. What important towns between Havana and Matanzas? — A. On 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 387 

the line of the railroad is Minas (the first town where there is a military 
operating station), then the town of Jaruoo, burnt l>y Antonio Maceo 
(another operating point), then the next important towns are Agucate 
and Mad ruga, and the one next to Matanzas is Ceiba Mocha. Then 
t here are t \\ o or t Uree other small towns in between. 

Q. We have been informed by other persons who have been there 

that the concenl ral i >f the rural populal ion lias taken place at many, 

if not all, of these towns you have mentioned. — A. Yes; that is, toa 
certain extent. The Cubans initiated it. There was a partial concen- 
tration first, l>ul it was on the part of the Cubans. 

(). I low could the Cubans concentrate on the towns unless they had 
the occupation of t he tow us .' — A. 1 mean they forced them into the towns. 
When the invasion reached the provinces of Havana and Pinardel Kio 

i I w as in t he island from I he- time I he revolution broke out), when the 

Cubans reached these provinces, they found a large majority of the 

people living t here were Spanish storekeepers, clerks, etc., many belong- 
ing lo the volunteer corps(all Spaniards coming to Cuba have to belong 
to t he volunteer corps). I f they have not served in Spain, they join the 
volunteers to \\i-v themselves from the enforced military service which 
all have io suffer in spam. Also in Pinardel Rio the large bulk of the 
population are Canary Islanders, not Cubans, and all stanch support- 
ers of the Crown, and belong to the volunteer corps. A large majority 
of the tobacco planters are also Canary [slanders, as are also many of 
the sugar planters in Havana and Matanzas. The Cubans commenced 
their career of — well, they really commenced the atrocities themselves 
then. The Spaniards of the volunteer corps were taken and hung, and 
the trail of Bermudez could be followed by the bodies of those who 
wore hung on the trees. 

Q. Did you ever see an instance of that kind? — A. Yes, sir; two of 
them -three of them. 

Q. Where.' A. The first was on the sugar estate of Santa Teresa, in 
the Province of Havana. The second— hold, on, he was not a Spaniard, 
he was a Cuban — I believe, near Rio Bayamos, also in the Province of 
Havana. In the Province of Pinardel Rio, while, 1 did not see them, 
I know of the case where Bermudez hung 21 — everybody spoke of it — 
21 to one tree, of these Spanish volunteers. 

Q. Who was Bermudez 1 ? — A. Bermudez led the vanguard of Maceo's 

army during the invasion. Bermudez was a bandit before the war, and 
is called, among the people who lived in the fields, the Weyler of the 
( lubans. 

< A >. What has become of him ''. — A. lie is still there, if he did not die 
of his wound, received just before Maceo crossed the trocha. I do not 
mean to say that this was approved by Maceo, for when Maceo found 
that so many people had been killed, he deprived Bermudez of his 
command. 

Q. It was done by a bandit? — A. An ex- bandit; but he was a colonel 
in the < 'uban army. 

C>. He was deprived of his command by Maceo 1 ? — A. Yes, sir. 

C>. Because of these outrages'? — A. Yes, sir. Antonio Maceo and 
all the rest of these Cuban chiefs, when they got this invasion finished, 
or had carried their revolution to the far western part of the province, 
started to organize their various zones' and appointed local chiefs. One 
of the lirst steps of these local chiefs was to eliminate from the country 
people all those who had Spanish tendencies. All who lived in the 
country who were in any way suspected of Spanish sympathy and all who 
belonged to the volunteer corps, were ordered to the towns and their 



B88 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

houses were burned over their heads. That started the concentration 
business. When Weyler began his concentration, there was not a man 
living in the open fields who was not at least morally, if not openly, a 
Cuban insurgent. A man to live in the fields has to work for the 
Cuban government and plant vegetables for tbem, and he is, technically, 
an insurgent, living under the laws of the Cuban prefecto, and he has 
to acknowledge their authority or go to tbe town. They give no choice. 

Q. They do not kill him, but send him to town ? — A. They do not 
kill tbem. They have hung several for various little offenses. 

Q. What kind of offenses ? — A. One fellow in the province of Havana, 
a Cuban colonel — Col. Eaul Aran go — invited me once to a double hang- 
ing. One man be had ordered to town, and bad been seen outside after- 
wards, and be was going to catch bim and hang him 

Q. Treat him as a spy?— A. I suppose so. Tbe other man was to be 
hung because he bad taken cattle into town without permission. 

Q. Treated him as a spy also 1 ?— A. Tbe cattle were bis own. If they 
fiatch anyone who is giving help to tbe Spaniards, they string bim up. 

Q. The Cubans treat those who are not with them as the enemies of 
the Bepublic? — A. Yes, sir. It was only recently, in the province of 
Villa Clara, that I called Comez's attention to it, and asked him what 
he meant and if it was bis policy. Around tbe small town of Fomento 
the Spaniards had not operated for a long time. It was about the begin- 
ning of Weyler's campaign, in the month of January or February. 
There were probably 100 families, or 800 individuals, living within a 
radius of, say, 3 leagues of this town — all little farmers, most of them 
Cubans and insurgent sympathizers working for the cause. Many were 
families of the insurgents where the men were out fightihg. To show 
that Gomez is bound to force this concentration business himself, these 
people were ordered several times to vacate their homes and either go 
to the towns or to the hills. They did not obey. I believe the order 
was given twice, and still they did not notice it. Major Herrera — a 
Cuban major — was given orders by Brigadier Bravo, of Trinidad, to 
burn the houses of everyone and thus force them to move. The orders 
were carried out, and the houses of these people were looted and 
burned and their money and valuables taken away by their own coun- 
trymen. These people left destitute, and a great many enraged at the 
treatment they received, went to the town and joined the local guer- 
rillas. I reported it to Gomez, and asked if that was his policy, as he 
was always decrying the Spaniards for employing these methods. He 
said, " Those people would not get out of there, and I did it as a humane 
measure. The humanity consists in forcing them to go away, because 
if they stay there the Spaniards will come along and kill them." The 
idea is to get the people out of the country. It is just as much to 
Gomez's ends as to those of the Spaniards not to have too many people 
around. It is only because he is at present in a country where there 
are no people, or where there are no pacificos living, that he is able to 
elude the vigilance of the Spaniards. This policy was not started 
recently, but long ago, and Weyler has taken the same precaution as 
Gomez had done previously. 

Q. Around what town was this? — A. Fomento. 

Q. After they had their houses burnt, they joined the guerrillas? — A. 
A great many, as they were enraged at the treatment they received at 
the hands of those they thought their friends. A few poor devils who 
had no money and no prospects went to the hills and built huts, and 
had to start life over again. 

Q. Most of them went to the guerrillas? — A. Yes, sir; enraged at 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 389 

the treatment they had received. They had been strict pacificos, but 
they had given their support to the Cuban government; had acted as 
spies; given vegetables, potatoes, etc., aud many of them were con- 
nected with the families of those who were then in the Cuban army. 
In this, I meant they were relatives. 

Q. The family, then, would be divided; some on one side A. No, 

sir; those who were the families of men fighting went to the hills 
where they could be with their husbands. I mean women and children; 
no men. 

Q. In these battles, I suppose there have been captures of Spanish 
troops'? — A. I think only one or two is the highest number captured in 
any one fight. I have probably seen a dozen of them captured in all 
the time I was with them. 

Q. Only about a dozen? — A. Yes, sir; that is all. 

Q. What was done with them? — A. One was killed, the rest set free. 

Q. Which was killed? — A. That was an incident in the fight at Palina„ 
The prisoner was a guerrillero, caught in this town. The insurgents 
had their heaviest loss at this fight, aud they captured the fellow and 
accused him of firing on them from a house. Maceo had him brought 
up and cross-examined, and then ordered his escort to take him to one 
side. He did not order him killed, but I saw the flash of a machete a 
minute after, a hoarse groan, and when I went over there a few minutes 
after they told me they bad cut his head off and rolled the body down 
the hill. 

Q. How many captured by the Spaniards? — A. I don't know of any. 

Q. The whole number was about a dozen? — A. I know of cases where 
the Cubans captured forts, etc., but I mean by this dozen those cap- 
tured in the field. 

Q. Take the prisoners captured in any way, what has been their 
fate? — A. Gomez and Maceo generally set them at liberty, offering them 
the privilege of joining the Cuban forces. If they did not accept, they 
let them go free. 

Q. Take them back to their lines, sending an escort with them to 
protect them from the Cuban pickets? — A. No, sir. I wrote an article 
speaking of the captives of Guaimaro. That was the town the Cubans 
captured in Camaguey. Captain Smith told me on the field that he had 
heard that half of the prisoners were butchered on their way to Santi- 
ago de Cuba. He denies it since coming here, but I wrote it on the 
field, giving him as my authority, which he was willing I should do at 
the time. 

Q. Who was the commander? — A. I do not know. 

Q. Have you ever seen the articles of surrender? — A. I think I have 
read them; I don't remember now. 

Q. Did you notice the receipt the Spanish officer gave for his 
troops? — A. That was for the sick. 

Q. For the prisoners? — A. I understood the prisoners were sent to 
the East to plant potatoes; I may be in error in that; I don't make 
any special point of that. 

Q. Do you know — you have had good opportunity for observing — 
have you known any case where Gomez or Maceo, or any other Cuban 
general, has caused prisoners captured either in battle or out of battle 
to be shot? — A. I once had occasion to write about the conduct of 
Lieut. Col. Frederico Nunez, in the province of Pinar del Eio. He cap- 
tured five Spanish soldiers on the estate Susi, near Cayajabos, and 
strung them up. 

Q. Did Maceo know of that? — A. No; he was very indignant about 
it when he heard of it. 



390 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. What did he do about it? — A. Reprimanded him, I guess. 

Q. What was the excuse for doing it? — A. I forget the excuse. There 
was quite a little talk about it. He had some trouble with General 
Arolas at the time, and there was something behind it; I could not 
explain. 

Q. Did he do it as an act of retaliation upon some Spanish gen- 
eral? — A. No. 

Q. Because they were spies'? — A. No. 

Q. Well? — A. He might have done it because they were spies. He 
captured them near the trocha, as Oayajabos was the first town outside 
the trocha. 

Q. How did Maceo know about them? — A. Nunez made the report 
himself. 

Q. Made the report that he captured them and hung them? — A. 
Tes, sir. You asked rne did I know anything. I have a copy of an 
official document of one of these executions, committed by a Cuban 
subchief without the knowledge of his superiors. Here is a letter from 
Juan Ducasse, commanding the southern brigade of the province of 
Pinar del Rio. 

Q. No, sir. — A. "I have notice that you have verified some execu- 
tions in the district under my command without my previous knowl- 
edge " 

Q. Who was that from? — A. Ducasse to his subordinate. "I direct 
this present letter to you so that in the future you will abstain from 
doing this without filling all the legal requirements that are necessary 
in such cases. Please acknowledge the receipt of the present letter." 
This was, as I say, sent by Ducasse to one of his subalterns (Maj.Tomas 
jtfurgado) who had caused a ccuple of pacificos to be executed. 

Q. In every case the act, when it came to the knowledge of the com- 
mander, was disapproved and rebuked — the man sometimes deprived 
of his rank? — A. Yes, sir. In another case I had the confession of a 
man who did it. Dr. Rojas Sanchez was a commander in Zayas's force. 
He boasted of having been given eight prisoners to deliver to the 
Spanish authorities, and openly bragged that only four got there. 

Q. Did he say he reported that fact to his commanding officer? — 
A. No, sir. 

Q. He kept that concealed?— A. Yes, sir; to show that Zayas was 
acting in good faith, when he made a big raid iuto the town of Esper- 
anzn, near Santa Clara city, this same major openly boasted that he 
refused to go into the town unless given permission to use his machete 
on all pacificos, and Zayas would not allow him to go in, but ordered 
him to stay outside the town. A story comes to my mind 

Q. A story I don't care about.— A. It is not a story; it was told to 
me by two soldiers 

Q. I don't care about putting in this record the stories — 

A. I am perfectly convinced of it. 

Q. Why so? — A. Because I threatened to have these men before their 
commanding officers. 

Q. Why didn't you do it? — A. Because I had no time. 

Q. Why not? — A. I had to get my dispatches to Trinidad. 

Q. You got the confessions from two soldiers that they had com- 
mitted some outrage? — A. No, sir; that when the town of San Pedro 
was attacked the whole force was given orders to use the machete on 
all male inhabitants, but to respect women and children, and to burn 
and loot everything. These were two wounded men in a hospital of a 
prefecto. They were talking among themselves and with my servant. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 391 

I understand Spanish perfectly. I got up out of my hammock and 
said to them, "Why do you men talk all that stuff, when you know 
you did not have such orders'?" They said, yes they did. I said, 
"That is against all precedent, and General Diaz never gave you any 
orders to cut down all male inhabitants. Pedro Diaz is a great friend 
of mine" — which he was — "and 1 will have you taken before him;" 
and they never flinched. 

Q. Did you see Diaz again? — A. ^o, sir. 

Q. Did you ever use that conversation? — A. No, sir; I just give it 
as it comes to my mind. 

Q. Do you know Diaz? — A. Perfectly. 

Q. Did you believe that? — A. It seems improbable, and I did not 
like to believe it. That is the reason I raised such a row about it. The 
order was to burn and loot everything, to kill the men, but to respect 
women and children. They are very severe on any lack of respect to 
women. I have seen three cases of men hung for rape. 

Q. How do you know any orders were given by any Cuban officer to 
loot and burn, to machete the men, but respect the women ? Do you know 
that order was ever given? — A I have heard it at La Palma. I have 
been at attacks on towns, and I have heard the order to loot and burn 
the town, but to respect women and children. The reason Maceo 
suffered such a defeat at Palma was because he put in all his unarmed 
men to assist in looting, they were so anxious to get clothing. His 
men were nearly naked. 

Q. You went as an electrical engineer when you first went to Cuba? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long did you work at that? — A. Until the year after the war 
began. 

Q. Establishing telegraph lines? — A. No, sir; putting up electric- 
light plants. 

Q. What company? — A. Spanish-American Electric Light and Power 
Company. 

Q. Where located? — A. The head office at New York. I was employed 
by the company to be stationed at Matanzas. 

Q. Did you have any plants elsewhere through the island? — 
A. Myself, personally? 

Q. No; this company? — A. One in Havana, at Matanzas, and also 
at Cienfuegos; one small one also at Kegla and Guanabacoa indirectly. 

Q. Did they have a good deal of money invested? — A. Yes, sir; it 
is a pretty rich company. 

Q. About how much? — A. I have no idea. 

Q. Can't you give us some idea? — A. No, sir; on account of their 
gas works they probably had more money invested there than any other 
American company. 

Q. Do they control the gas in those cities? — A. Yes, sir; the gas and 
electric light in Havana and Matanzas. 

Q.- Controls the telegraph lines? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Who controls them? — A. The Government. 

Q. Who built them ? — A. I don't know who built them. 

Q. Could not you give some approximation to the amount of money 
this company you represented has invested in Cuba? — A. It would be 
rather hard, for the detail of that company is — it is a big stock com- 
pany, and I could not give any information; that was not my business. 

Q. How many men employed? — A. A couple of hundred altogether. 

Q. Americans, usually? — A. No; Cubans. I, myself was the only 
American in Matanzas, not only in the electric-light works, but in the 



392 AFFAIES IN CUBA. 

city. I tliiuk there were only two native Americans in the city of 
Matanzas while I was there. 

Q. Perhaps yon conlcl approach to within $50,000 or $100,000 of the 
amount? — A. No, sir; I would not like to make any statement; I am 
ignorant of their affairs. 

Q. It is very large? — A. Very large. Judging from the size of their 
plant, it is very much. 

Q. Have they suffered from the war? — A. In this way: I don't think 
Spain is paying their gas bills, and they can't get their money from the 
town councils. 

Q. I suppose they want it pretty bad? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. It cuts you out of a job? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. A good one? — A. I was not employed by them when the war 
broke out; I was in business for myself. 

Q. What business? — A. I was in with Mr. Schlesinger, who repre- 
sented Mr. Oscar Stillman, of Boston. 

Q. Did you put up many of those plants? — A. Quite a few. 

Q. How many ? — A. large electric-light plant in the city of Colon, 
for a French company of Paris, and also five smaller plants throughout 
the island. 

Q. Are they still in operation ? — A. No, sir ; because the smaller ones 
were in sugar factories, and the majority are burned. 

Q. The war found you in that employment? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And cut you off from all opportunity of getting along in that 
business, and it was then you became a correspondent of the New York 
Herald? — A. Yes, sir; I am not a newspaper man by profession. 

Q. Were you employed while in Havana, or did you come here and 
secure your employment? — A. While in Havana, the first time, by let- 
ter from the home office. The second time, I was ordered by letter 
from James Gordon Bennett, from Paris, to go there. 

Q. Bennett has no interest in the island? — A. None that I know of. 
My instructions were to be impartial, to give both sides a hearing, and 
I have tried to follow them. 

Q. Were your dispatches examined by the Spanish? — A. No, sir; 
they never got near the Spanish. 

Q. You were not representing both sides then? — A. Well, no; the 
fact is that the Spaniards have prohibited the correspondents from 
going into the field, and we break their laws by doing so. 

Q. You can not give an account of what you see? — A. They would 
not let you out into the country. 

Q. You could from Havana? — A. Yes, sir; but they would not let 
you out with their columns of operation. That system was inaugurated 
by Weyler. . While Martinez Campos was in Cuba they allowed cor- 
respondents to go with the columns, and I had a pass at that time. I 
have a pass from the second captain-general, the same position that 
Ahumada holds at present. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Did you know William G-. Smith, of Gomez's bodyguard? — A. 
Yes, sir; he was once with me a month away from Gomez. 

Q. How long did you know him? — A. Just that month. 

Q. What month was that? — A. It was the month he left Gomez's 
camp, on the 14th of February. 

Q. This year? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Was that when he was going home? — A. No, sir; I offered to take 
him with me, but Gomez would not let him. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 393 

Q. What was his rank? — A. He had the rank of captain in Gomez's 
escort. 

Q. How long has he been with him 1 ?— A. About a year, I think. A 
year last May he joined Gomez, if I am not mistaken — April or May. 

Q. What were you and he off a month together for? — A. Smith was 
greatly interested in the case of Scovil, arrested and put in jail, and 
we wanted to go down to notify the American consul. We thought 
word had not been sent up to him about it, and, as I was going to notify 
the consul, he went as my companion. 

Q. Anybody else with you? — A. My two servants. 

Q. Where did you go? — A. All through that region, from Eeforma 
to Trinidad. 

Q. Did you obtain access to the American consul? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Notified him ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And then went back to Gomez? — A. Yes, sir; we saw our con- 
sular agent at Trinidad. The consul-general, Lee, we found had been 
already notified. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. On that excursion, when you were with Smith, were you under 
the orders of anybody? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Was he? — A. Only under my orders, to go where we wanted to. 

Q. He was on leave of absence? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Gomez knew what your mission was? — A. Yes, sir; to get my 
dispatches through, and see about Scovil. 

Q. What became of Scovil? — A. He got out. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. A great deal has been said, Mr. Bea, about the massacre of the 
sick and wounded and nurses in the hospitals of the insurgents. Did 
you ever witness anything of that kind? — A. No, sir; I did not, but 
I do not doubt that they may have captured a few hospitals. 

Q. Irrespective of the number, have you any doubt that when the 
Spaniards captured the hospital they killed the inmates? — A. No, sir. 

Q. That is a well-understood fact? — A. A well-understood fact. 

Q. They have captured a great many? — A. No, sir. 

Q. But they have killed all when they did capture one? — A. Yes, 
sir. A Cuban hospital is a difficult place of access, and I was only 
allowed, as a special favor, to see one of them. The Cubans them- 
selves do not know where they are. They are established in the most 
inaccessible places. 

Q. I suppose for the reason that they know that the inmates will be 
butchered if captured? — A. Their policy has been to put the hospitals 
in secure places. As a general rule, they would not allow a trail within 
a half a mile or mile of the place. 

Q. Did you know of any manufactory of clothing on the part of the 
insurgents? — A. Only of shoes. 

Q. To what extent do they manufacture shoes? — A. Quite a little. 
They make a bad attempt of tanning the hide and make quite a fair 
shoe for people who have never done anything of the kind before. 
They also make saddles. 

Q. Make no clothing? — A. All the clothing worn by the rebels has 
to be brought out from the Spanish towns or lines, except when they 
raid a town. These attacks on the towns, as a rule, are not made with 
any view except to get clothing or stores. I know that when Maceo 
attacked towns on three occasions he did it for the purpose of getting 
clothing for his infantry. 

Q. Are there any manufacturing establishments for the repair of 



394 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

arms'? — A. Yes, sir; they have armories, and have a few mechanics to 
repair arms, who do very nice work. 

Q. Any manufacturing establishment for powder? — A. ISTone that I 
know of. 

Q. You do not know that there is none? — A. 1 never heard of it. I 
heard of a powder maker going down there, but he came away dissat- 
isfied. They also made a couple of brass cannon, but they never used 
them, and they never did them any good. 

By Mr. Morgan: 

Q. Did they make any small arms — guns? — A. They do not make any 
guns; a few machetes are all. It is commonly understood in the 
United States that they have plenty of men on the Island of Cuba to 
take up arms, but all that is lacking are the arms themselves. My 
experience in La Villas goes to prove entirely the contrary, because 
when Gomez crossed the trochas he brought with him several hundred 
extra arms from the eastern provinces, and had to force men to take 
them. He had to take men out of the country to shoulder those arms 
by what we call a forced draft. 

Q. What became of those superfluous men you spoke of around 
Maceo's camp? — A. I suppose they are there yet. Just before I left 
the Cubans landed two expeditions, and the junta claim they sent a 
couple of thousand rifles. That would account for these arms. Maceo 
had a large number of "impedimenta;'' Gomez has none of them at all. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. "Impedimenta" means baggage, etc. You used it as meaning 
unarmed men? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. You spoke of a number of unarmed men who were with Maceo 
and in his way? — A. Yes, sir; about 1,500. 

Q. What became of them? — A. I suppose they are armed now. 

Q. Do you think that that tends to show there are no Cubans wanting 
arms? — A. What I mean is, there are no men leaving^the towns for the 
army. 

Q. I am talking about people m the country. — A. In La Villas there 
are no men in the country. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Do you not understand that those concentrados are mostly women 
and children and old men? — A. I do not understand that at all. 

Q. Have you ever witnessed one of those places? — A. I saw just as 
many young men as there are old men. 

Q. When? — A. Just before I came home — a few months ago. 

Q. Men that have come in from the country — Cubans? — A. I saw 
just as many young men as old men. The Cuban who has his country 
at heart — who was a patriot — went out during the first year. Those 
who have joined during the last year have been forced out by various 
circumstances — by lack of food, by persecutions of the Spaniards, etc. 
All the Cubans who had money when this war broke out came to the 
United States, and are carrying on the war from here. Leaving out 
those who rose up against Spain during the first year of the outbreak, 
the men carrying on this war in the island are those who could not help 
themselves or had no money to get away. This insurrection was going 
on for a year in the provinces of Camaguey and Santa Clara, and those 
in the west did not have the nerve to take up arms. 

Q. Did you ever have any difficulty with Gomez? — A. Yes, sir. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 395 

Q. What was it? — A. It is quite a long story. General Gomez and 
I were very good friends until — I do not say he is a bad friend of mine 
now, but he treated me very badly. He did not treat me as he had 
others. He treated Seovil much better. He offered him twenty men to 
help him get through, and did not offer me any. 

Q. What do you mean by impartial manner? — A. He showed par- 
tiality to the others. 

Q. In what month or in what year did this partiality begin? — A. 
When I first met the old man. 

Q. What other correspondents were in the camp? — A. Sylvester 
Seovil, correspondent of the World. 

Q. He treated him better than you? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That continued until you ceased all relations with him? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. Now you can go on and make any statement you want to. — A. I 
had been away from him to Trinidad. I saw things that astonished 
me — that ought not to have taken place in the Cuban Government, 
I saw many things that would work against them if printed and prove 
detrimental to their character. Among other things Smith and I wit- 
nessed — not exactly witnessed, but we were within half a mile of the 
town of Paredes. At 1 o'clock at night the Cubans attacked the town. 
There were 16 Spanish soldiers in the garrison — in one fort 5, in another 
9, in another 2. They attacked the town and captured two forts, and 
there were but 5 Spaniards to deal with, when someone raised the 
cry, " Here comes the Spaniards," and they ran out of the town, leaving 
their dead and wounded. The Cuban commander made a report to 
Gomez, saying he had gained a big victory, while exactly the opposite was 
the case. He left his dead and wounded in the streets and ran away. 
Also, Smith and I had experience with the "majas" or unarmed men, 
who live in the hills and steal the food from the pacificos and respect 
no one's authority. We also had seen several cases on the part of the 
Government prefectos, who would not attend to their business. When 
I got to Gomez's camp, the old man asked me, very honestly, "How 
about your trip?" I said, "I have not enjoyed it very much;" and I 
went on to explain what I had seen. 1 told the old man, for his benefit, 
what I had seen, and Smith did also, and the old man was quite inter- 
ested until finally he got mad and walked away; and I talked some 
with the other officers and made some criticisms on what had passed 
and that they did not know anything about. Gomez came to me after 
supper when I was passing through the camp and said, " What do you 
mean, Mr. Rea, by telling me all these things that you saw on that trip?" 
In the afternoon before that he came to me and said, "You have told 
me these things, I suppose, because you sympathize with me and want 
them corrected." Afterwards he called to me and asked what I meant 
by it, and I told him again what I had said before. He said it was not 
true, and I told him it was not my habit to lie. 

Q. Was Smith in the camp? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you call on him to corroborate you? — A. No, sir; Smith is 
afraid of the old man. Gomez said, " What did you mean by saying my 
brigadier made a false report?" and I said that he did make a false 
report if he had said that he won a victory, after he had run away 
and left his dead and wounded. He said, a What do you think of it, 
and what are you going to write about it?" I said " I am to write the 
truth," and he said that I had no business to write the truth. 

Q. Did he make any point that you had made the same statements 
that you made to him to the various men in his command? — A. No, sir; 
the various men in his command have made these statements to him. 



396 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

He got very mad about it, and said that if I wrote these stories he would 
shoot me. I looked at him iu surprise. I thought perhaps the old man 
might take it into his head to do it then. I said that it was a pretty 
serious thing to shoot a man, especially an American, and he answered 
that as the United States or nobody else had recognized him as a bel- 
ligerent, and his status was that of a bandit, he would shoot me, and that 
he could not be held responsible. After awhile he calmed down and we 
parted very comfortably. In the morning Gomez, in the front of all his 
forces, started again on the American Congress, the Xew York Herald, 
the American public, Grover Cleveland, and everybody else, and I told 
him I could not stand it any longer. He said all we cared about it was 
what we could get out of it or the money we might make. 

Q. What did you say about that? — A. I said he was way off— that 
is not exactly what I said. 

Q. Give us exactly. — A. I said "General Gomez, you are very unjust. 
You very well know that if the United States should set its foot down, 
and cut off your chance of getting arms and ammunition your revolu- 
tion could not last." 

Q. Was that between you and Gomez alone"? — A. No, sir; the whole 
army was there — that is, the whole of the army he had, 150 men and 
staff. 

Q. They heard it all ? — A. Yes, sir. After it was all over they came 
to me and tried to smooth it over. I said they could not smooth it over 
until the old man apologized. Smitb was there and was very mad. He 
went up to Gomez and told him that he must stop abusing Americans 
or he would resign. 

Q. Did he give a reason for this? — A. Because he had insulted the 
nation and Americans. 

Q. Smith did not show he was very much afraid of the old man, 
then? — A. No, sir. 

Q. He didn't like it?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you leave Gomez after this incident? — A. About an hour 
afterwards. 

Q. Did you leave his camp then? — A. About an hour afterwards. 

Q. Did you report these facts to your paper? — A. To the paper, yes, 
sir; I did not publish them. I did not know whether I was right in 
publishing them or not. The old man made these remarks to me, and 
raised the dickens for no cause whatever. He was quite put out 
because, I suppose, the old fellow thought we ought to have been 
arrested and put in prison by the Spanish Government, so as to raise 
an issue between that Government and our own. 

Q. Did you say anything about the partiality he had shown to other 
correspondents? — A. No, sir; I never said a word about it. He was 
comparing me with the other correspondents. He had said that it would 
be a very good thing if Scovil or I were arrested, and then the United 
States Government would get into trouble with Spain in regard to it, 
and he made the same remark that morning, and he made a compari- 
son between Scovil and myself, and I said: "General, the clay I get 
arrested by the Spaniards, I don't think it will cause a war that it will 
redound to your benefit." 

Having read and corrected the above statement, I hereby sign the 
same. 

Geo. Bronson Rea, 
355 Sixth avenue, Brooklyn, Y. Y. 
Brooklyn, N. Y., June , 1897. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 397 



STATEMENT MADE BY MR. STEPHEN BONSAL ON THE 11TH DAY 

OF JUNE, 1897. 

Mr. Bonsal was first sworn by Mr. Davis, chairman of the com- 
mittee : 

In the absence of Mr. Clark, one of its members, Mr. Davis acted as 
a member of the subcommittee. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Please state your age, name, and the country of your nativity. — 
A. Stephen Bonsai; born in the State of Maryland 32 years ago, in 
1865. 

Q. What is your occupation ? — A. Journalist. 

Q. What is your acquaintance with the Spanish people, both in Cuba 
and in Spain? — A. I have been in Spain several times, as correspond- 
ent of the New York Herald, a good many years ago; and in 1893 1 was 
appointed secretary of legation in Madrid, and remained about two 
years, until 1895. During that time I became acquainted with a great 
many Spaniards, and am very fond of Spain and of the Spaniards in 
many ways. I have written a great deal about the country, or rather 
of old Spain, and always in the most complimentary way, until I went 
to Cuba, and came on the new phase of Spanish character; not new, 
but new to me. 

Q. When did you go to Cuba, and how long did you remain? — A. 
1st of January, 1897, and I got back before the middle of April. I 
have been back more than six weeks. 

Q. In what capacity did you go to Cuba? — A. As a special corre- 
spondent of the New York Herald. 

Q. While there, did you visit the interior of the island? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. At what places? — A. I was, you might say, everywhere in the 
four western provinces. I was not in the two eastern provinces, gen- 
erally called Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba — I was not in 
u free Cuba." I was not with Gomez's army; I was not where they 
control. I was generally within the Spanish lines. 

Q. Those two eastern provinces are called La Villas? — A. No, Las 
Villas — that is very confusing. There are two ways of describing 
these divisions, by names of certain provinces, and then by certain 
expressions that have grown up among the Cubans. Las Villas 
describes the five towns. The real meaning of the expression is the 
five towns. 



398 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. It has 110 value as description? — A. !N"o, sir; it is very confusing. 
It is like other expressions they have. The Cubans always use the 
terms, the upturn and the downturn of the island. That is the way 
the Cubans describe it; that it goes up one way and down the other. 
There are all sorts of descriptions, but I think the best way is the names 
of the provinces. 

Q. In your visit were you limited to the railways, or did you travel 
by the ordinary country roads ? — A. I traveled some by the ordinary 
country roads, but on my journey from Havana to what they call the 
front, the front of operations against insurgents, I traveled principally 
by train with military convoy. I traveled a good deal in Pinar del Eio 
by horseback, and also in Santa Clara; but the longest journey, from 
Havana to the city of Santa Clara, was by train with convoy, which 
took three or four days. 

Q. Taking the country within the lines of the Spaniards as you 
found it on your first visit to the interior, what was the condition of 
the rural population outside the towns and cities at that time as to 
homes and subsistence and general prosperity? — A. When I reached 
Cuba, .the so-called policy of concentration had been already put in 
force almost completely. There were some places where I still saw 
them driving in the country people. These orders of concentration 
were issued by the Captain-General of the island in October, 1896. 
They were issued on different dates, but began in October, 1896. One 
of these proclamations I published in the Review of Eeviews. I got it 
from one of the general staff in Havana. I have seen the others, and 
they are identical, with the exception of different dates for different 
provinces. Between October and December, 1896, this policy of con- 
centration was perfected and carried out. Every peasant and every 
person living in the four western provinces outside the garrison towns 
were driven into stations of concentration, their houses were all burnt, 
their crops and the palm trees destroyed, all the roots that grew — yams, 
etc. — were dug up, with the idea, many of the officers told me, to rob 
insurgent bauds in these so-called " pacified " provinces of the means 
of subsistence. 

Q. You mean the houses of all the ordinary rural population? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. There were still places protected in the interior? — A. There were 
about, I should say, in those four western provinces, 20 centrales, as 
they call them — sugar estates — protected. 

Q. Were troops stationed on those sugar estates? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. In every iustance? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Spanish troops ? — A. Yes, sir; of the regular army, and then irreg- 
ular troops, raised for the purpose of the defense of the estates for which 
the proprietors had to pay. 

Q. The proprietors had to pay the irregulars? — A. Yes, sir; and the 
regulars too. 

Q. Had to pay all? — A. Yes, sir; but the irregulars more. 

Q. Was that rule applied indiscriminately to proprietors residing in 
the United States and those residing in Cuba? — A. The rule as to the 
defense ? 

Q. And payment? — A. I do not know exactly to what rule you refer. 

Q. I mean the practice as to payment for protection. — A. I do not 
know whether any man was forced to defend his place. Before the war, 
where there are now 20 large sugar estates, there were over 200. You 
go along through those western provinces and you can see the standing 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 399 

chimneys. All the great machinery, the buildings, barns, etc., were 
burned — the great majority of these estates have been burned. There 
were many of the American estates protected in the way I have described, 
and several I have visited. 

Q. Your information, derived from the officers of Spanish army, as I 
understand you, is that the troops that were upon these estates were 
paid for by the proprietors? — A. Yes, sir; absolutely; paid for openly. 
It was a bargain. It was arranged at the palace at Havana, and they had 
to pay extra there. It was a written contract. They had to pay extra 
to keep the comandante sweet. It cost them a pretty penny to have 
this garrison. Every man had to — the way they did this, they would 
have these places declared strategic points. That was the way the 
Spaniards would excuse the fact that they were having large bodies of 
troops in places where they were absolutely of no use. So Mr. Atkins 
or the sugar planters would go to Havana and have breakfast with the 
Marquis Palmerola and have a talk, and have their places declared a 
strategic point, and the Captain-General would order a certain number 
of troops there until further orders, with the understanding that the 
proprietor would pay so much bounty. I visited one estate where there 
were a thousand men. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. What estate? — A. Azpeztequia, on the southern coast, belong- 
ing to the Marquis, now in Madrid, and who belongs to the constitu- 
tional or tory party in Cuba. It had eighty forts defending it. 

Q. Eighty forts % — A. Fortines. They look like forts in Sebastapol, 
a game we used to play when I was a boy 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. Did you learn whether this destruction of sugar plantations was the 
work of one side exclusively or both ? — A. I think it was both sides. It is 
a rather difficult question, because they have each changed their policy. 
The Spanish idea the first year of war, the last campaign, as announced 
over his own signature by Mr. Dupuy de Lome, was to make the sugar 
crop. That was to show that the revolution was merely local and of 
little importance. This letter was published, in the ISTew York Herald, 
being the ideas of the representative of the Spanish Government in the 
United States, and at that time they took steps to protect the sugar 
estates to the best of their ability. Azpeztequia was the first man to 
fortify his estate. As soon as they found out, as they did a year and 
a half ago, while the first sugar crop was making, that even the most 
loyal Spaniard, being a business man, was perfectly willing to pay 50 
cents a bag for the sugar he made to the insurgents, or to the Cuban 
prefecto — when they found out that the people they were protecting 
were paying taxes into the patriot treasury they concluded it would 
be a good thing to destroy all the sugar. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. By "them" you mean the Spanish? — A. Yes, sir. This year they 
have done nothing for the sugar people, because they knew all the sugar 
people, whether American, French, German, or the most loyal Span- 
iard, were paying tribute on their prospective crop to the insurgent local 
representatives. It is so easy to burn cane. One man can burn cane, 
and 4,000 can not stop it. So the policy of the Spanish Government in 
Cuba on the sugar question changed entirely. Last year it was to 
make the crop; this year they think to hurt the Cubans more by 
destroying it. 



400 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. It was changed because the Cuban revolutionists could collect 
the revenue from the Spaniards'? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Was that revenue willingly paid? — A. I think there was no 
unwillingness. I have talked with many of the Spaniards and they 
looked on it as a fair business proposition. They would rather pay 50 
cents a bag than lose their sugar. Sometimes they refuse. Sometimes 
a man, because he had a thousand soldiers on his estate, thought that 
he could refuse and would not pay, but the crop was always burned. 
That happened to an American. 

Q. What was his name! — A. Stillman. He was somewhat sluggish 
and his crop was burned. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. After this policy of concentration had been accomplished, or nearly 
so, when you arrived there, what was the condition of the small home- 
steads throughout the portion of the island you visited? — A. They were 
all either burned or thrown down. 

Q. Crops destroyed ? — A. Yes, sir; absolutely. 

Q. What was the situation of the country as to cattle, hogs, etc.? — 
A. The cattle that had belonged to these guajiros, or peasant class, 
had been principally driven into the stations of concentration, as these 
people understood, to save them the trouble, and that they were to be 
given back to them when they got to the stations which had been 
designated for them to reside in, but they never saw the cattle again. 
They were swept into the commissariat department of the Spanish 
army and disappeared from view. 

Q. Are there any cattle left? — A. Very few. 

Q. It was desolation, then ? — A. I have been in many countries where 
there was devastation, but I have never seen such a picture of abso- 
lute desolation as those provinces presented in the early springtime of 
this year. 

Q. You saw parties of the rural population being driven into these 
point of concentration?— A. I did. 

Q. Were they going willingly? — A. Most unwillingly, but not resist- 
ing. There had been many cases where they did resist. 

Q. What became of them then? — A. They were shot. 

Q. Did you see those same people later in your tour in Cuba, these 
concentrados? — A. I have been to every important station of concen- 
tration in the four western provinces. 

Q. Did you identify any of the people? — A. Ko, sir. 

Q. Did you see them at those stations? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Are those stations many? — A. I saw every one — I mean every 
considerable one. There are fifteen or twenty stations of importance. 
By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. What was their condition when you last saw them? — A. They 
were absolutely without food. The last station I saw was at Matau- 
zas before I left the island. I saw the least suffering there. I have 
spoken more about that since I have been back because there were so 
many foreigners there who saw what I saw, and because in the stations 
in the interior, the purely military points, it is very difficult to have 
anything to say with the pacificos. You are followed by the soldiers, 
and they are told to keep their mouths shut. 

Q. What was the physical appearance of those people as to starva- 
tion and condition of health? — A. In many instances they could not 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA 401 

walk, could not get up from the seats on which they were sitting. This 
demonstration, made on or about the 22d of March, of the starving 
people of Matanzas, was the most affecting sight I have ever seen. Of 
the 8,000 or 9,000. or possibly 10,000, people on this Oascorra hill 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. I understand that at Matanzas those people who had been driven 
in were taken onto a hillside and located? — A. Yes, sir; these people, 
being absolutely at the end of ther resources, having no resources what- 
ever, being so reduced they could not go any farther, walked down to 
the palace in Matanzas, as many as could walk — niauy of them were so 
weak that they could not even walk — there were about 1,800 or 2,000 
of the 0,000 or 10,000 that could walk. 

Q. When they got there the men did not dare to talk, and the women 
did the talking? — A. Yes, sir; the women and children. There were 
children there 15 years of age without a single stitch of clothing. 

Q. Tell us about that officer you mentioned — did you see that? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Tell us about that. — A. One of the young adjutants came out and 
wanted to know what was tbe matter. They were very much frightened 
before they got near the palace, but one of the women spoke up and 
said they meant no disrespect, but they wanted his excellency the 
governor to know their condition. This young fellow went into the 
house and told the governor, and after quite a while the governor sent 
word to them to go around to the new artillery barracks and he would 
do what he could for them. An hour or two later he sent out a quan- 
tity of potatoes, which was sufficient to give each person that walked 
down one potato, and then they walked home, the weaker leaning on 
the more able-bodied, and they got back' in various ways to the place 
where they are dying. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Did you learn while there, in this particular locality of which you 
are speaking, whether there had been an extensive mortality or fatality, 
in consequence of their starvation? — A. Yes, sir; in consequence of 
the starvation and in consequence of the plagues and epidemics rag- 
ing among them. The yellow fever has been all winter unusually 
severe, owing to the bad sanitary condition in which they are living 
and the lack of food. The smallpox has also raged terrifically. There 
have been weeks in Matanzas where, in a population of 48,000 to 
50,000, there have been 350 deaths a week from smallpox, and the death 
wagons are going all the time to the settlement of these starving peo- 
ple. Accurate and absolute statistics would be difficult to give, but I 
think I am now quoting correctly. Why, a comparatively short time 
ago in Matanzas — I have in mind many things that our consul told me, 
Mr. Brinkerhoff, the Danish consul, and sugar merchants whom I met, 
say there have been over 3,000 who have died out of the 8,000 or 10,000 
concentrated there since the order went into effect. 

Q. Within your own observation or knowledge, has there been any 
effort at a systematic supply of food for these starving people by the 
Spanish Government? — A. There has been no effort, whether system- 
atic or sporadic, of any kind. While it was not published in the same 
proclamation, it was stated, when this new system of what is really 
extermination was introduced, that they would have zones of cultiva- 
tion when they were driven to the various places where it was good for 
them to reside, from a Spanish military standpoint; that each head of 
family would be allotted a place in which to plant and cultivate a 
26 



402 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

garden, and in Cuba it could have been easily done; and while the people 
would not have lived very well, still they would have survived if such 
an arrangement had been made, but in no single instance lias the zone 
of cultivation been handed over to the people. In several places they 
have said: "That is going to be the zone of cultivation." Matanzas 
was one, I remember, but it has never been done — never had been pro- 
posed to give it to them, in my opinion. It was merely a blind to the 
rest of the world, in my opinion. 

Q. If their promise had been kept and these zones of cultivation 
reserved for the people to give to them, they still would have been 
without tools or the assistance of animals to cultivate those crops'? — 
A. Yes, sir; but they live on so little, these people. The climate is 
such that they can live on vegetable diet almost entirely — on potatoes 
cooked in various ways — and nobody would have died of starvation, in 
my opinion. They never cultivate much, anyhow; they never plow; 
things simply grow. But, being compelled to stay in these stations and 
stay in their huts, with sentries around who would shoot them down if 
they crossed the line to dig for potatoes or roots, there is nothing left 
for them but to starve. 

Q. We hear a great deal of digging for roots. Can you name the 
roots on which these people can subsist 1 ? — A. I think there is a great 
deal of exaggeration in it. I do not know the names of any edible 
roots, and did not eat any myself while in Cuba; but I have been a 
great deal in the East Indies as well as in the West Indies, and I do 
not believe any European can live long on roots or leaves or edible 
palms. 

Q. There are edible palms by which considerable subsistence can be 
received? — A. Yes, sir; but I do not think Europeans can live on them. 

Q. The native Cubans can live on such diet 1 ? — A. By Europeans I 
mean the Cubans; I do not mean to refer to the aboriginal Indians. I 
mean, of course, in Java, Sumatra, etc., the natives live on air and a 
little rice once a year or so, but I do not think the natives in Cuba can 
do that. They are very fond of meat when they can get it. They can 
live very easily, but if, as has been proposed, they turn those people 
back, send them back to their ruined homes, to dig up roots and live 
on them, I think a great majority Avould starve. 

Q. If they were driven out now? — A. Yes; of course the country has 
been entirely destroyed behind them. 

Q. Their safety from starvation depends entirely on the people who 
are wealthy and the Spanish Government? — A. Entirely. They might 
be assisted back, and kept going for a month or so, until they could 
plant something. Judge Day asked me two or three days ago, I do 
not suppose confidentially, what would happen if the Spanish Govern- 
ment should change its policy and drive these people back to the places 
whence they came. I said that many would die on the way ; that many 
more would die of starvation after they arrived. 

Q. And very few would survive? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. So it is death to stay, and death to go back to their homes? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. Were the observations you made at Matanzas — I mean the results 
you reached at Matanzas — true, in your opinion, as to the other points 
of concentration? — A. Yes, sir; only at the other points, so far as I 
could see, each phase of suffering was more severe, because in Matan- 
zas there was a large population, some foreigners, and some people who 
had had means before the war; and there was such a thing there as 
a man who would send money to these people to aid them; and there 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 403 

was some effort, though generally ineffectual, to assist tliom. Take a 
place like Jaruco, between Matanzas ami Havana, simply a little sta- 
tion on the railroad, in the swamp, where 8,000 or 9,000 people have 
been concentrated, where the ordinary population, if any, was under 
100 — there death was absolutely sure;. I visited this station, and there 
were continual rows with the Spaniards. I could not see much, but 1 
could see that the conditions were worse, and the troops guarding them, 
being- under no surveillance at all, were treating them in a much more 
outrageous way. 

(}. Speaking of the treatment of the troops toward those poor people, 
was it immoral? — A. I have never seen that, but I believe it was so. 
As you know, these reconcentrados are principally women, children, 
and old .men. 1 have had a great many people tell me that, and I believe 
it absolutely. 

Q. That they were the subjects of violence? — A. Yes, sir. 

(). Did they have any appearance of cheerfulness or resignation to 
their late*? — A. No; they were perfectly listless; they were hopeless. 

Q. What sort of shelter did they have at these places of concentra- 
tion? — A. A palm-leaf house that they built with wonderful skill. I 
have seen many of them, and have pictures of many in process of erec- 
tion. They reach the place where they are told they are to live, and 
they are told to build the houses — all lie on the ground. They get the 
dry palm leaves and a few sapling poles for the four corners of the 
hut, and within an hour they have a very decent hut, all thatched with 
palm leaves down the side. 

Q. Is that any protection against the heavy rains'? — A. None at all; 
they all leak. They have no beds, all lie on the ground, which is death 
itself in that climate. If a man has a hammock, a soldier comes along 
and if he wants a hammock he takes it. 

Q. I low do these huts where these people live in this confinement com- 
pare with tin; houses they lived in while at home? — A. Their houses 
were very comfortable; many of them frame houses. These people 
lived in great comfort; they lived easily, and in great comfort. One 
of these little peasant farmers, with '."> or 4 acres of ground, would have 
every necessary of life, and even the principal luxuries-. These they 
would grow themselves, such as coffee and tobacco, with very little effort. 

Q. Is Cuba an abundant country in the production of coffee 1 ? — A. It 
does not produce a, great coffee crop, but you might say it is a great 
country for the production of coffee. They can produce, perhaps, more 
coffee to the acre in Cuba than anywhere else. In the last twenty-five 
or thirty years they have gone almost exclusively to planting sugar 
cane. 

Q. For commercial purposes? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do the common peasantry raise coffee? — A. He has; the little 
farmer has his coffee bushes covering a quarter of an acre, perhaps, 
and his little tobacco field. 

< k >. Do they have sugar cane? — A. No, sir. 

Q. lie depends on the market? — A. Yes, sir; sugar cane itself has 
no value. If a man wants a little cane, he goes and cuts it in the next 
field; it has no value before it is ground. 

Q. It is a rather indigenous product? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. These concentrados lived well at home and were supplied with 
coffee and tobacco raised in their own little patches and gardens? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. They had other comforts? — A. Yes, sir. 



404 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. They bad fruits, oranges, lemons, etc.? — A. Yes, sir; they have 
a great many fruits peculiar to Cuba that you never see anywhere else. 

Q. Are they nice, rich food — pleasant? — A. Yes, sir; they lived 
extremely well, particularly the country people of the Cubans. They 
are a well-fed and well-grown people. 

Q. Did you see among these concentrados any distribution of fruits, 
coifee, etc. ? — A. No, sir; I have heard, and I know it to be a fact, that 
in one or two places like Cienfuegos and Jucaro the city council, or 
ayuutamiento, having on it either Spaniards who had lived along time 
in Cuba and sympathized with their neighbors, or other charitable men, 
have voted to give these people a feed for one or two days. That has 
been done in one or two instances, but it only accentuates the starving 
condition of the people. If the people here in Washington should be 
starving and the city council should feed them for one day, it would 
only prolong the suffering, and that is the condition of these people. 
The city councils are very poor and can not do much, but that has been 
done in one or two instances, but nothing more than voting soup or din- 
ner, or something of that kind. 

Q. A casual supply ? — A. Yes, sir ; I simply mention it as a recog- 
nition of the fact by the people on the spot that these people were 
starving. 

Q. Was it or not your conclusion from what you saw, looking over 
all the facts of the situation, that the policy of the Spanish Govern- 
ment with these people was to exterminate them by starvation? — A. 
Yes, sir; that was my conclusion, and it was not a conclusion that the 
Spauish high officials resented you imputing to them at all. Many I 
have talked with admitted it openly, many of them, and then they go 
on to say — if this is interesting to you — they tell their experiences in 
the last war. They say in the last war we finally made an arrange- 
ment with the insurgents and the thing was over, and we gave Garcia, 
who now commands the army in the east, a good place in the treasury, 
and we provided for various leaders who had surrendered, and then all 
the time they were drawing money from the Spanish treasury they 
were arranging for another uprising. They say that the policy of what 
they call " kindness" has failed, and that now they have quite made up 
their minds that the only thing is extermination; that there will never 
be peace on the island as long as there are any of these Cubans left, or 
any considerable number of them. 

Q. The policy is then to exterminate? — A. Yes, sir; and they are not 
at all squeamish about admitting it. 

Q. They propose to destroy the present population? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And then to repopulate with Spanish?— A. Yes, sir. They have 
already exterminated one race, and Las Casas tells how they did it. 
They will probably follow the same methods with the Creole race. 

Q. None of the Indians are living? — A. No, sir; within forty years 
of taking possession by the Spaniards the Caribbean or Giboney race 
quite disappeared, although they had numbered 400,000 or 500,000 in a 
generation and a half. 

Q. Did you observe many Chinamen there? — A. Not as many as I 
thought would be from the Miaco coolie trade the Spanish had going 
some years ago; a good many had left. They are very prosperous; 
generally keep hotels in the small towns ; a few are laborers. They are 
provident and make money. 

Q. Are they engaged in the army of either Spain or Cuba, any of 
them ? — A. Some few in the insurgent army ; none in the Spanish army. 
There are a great many negroes in the Spanish army; a great many 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 405 

more, proportionately and absolutely, than in the insurgent army. 
Almost all the irregular troops in the Spanish army are negroes. 

Q. Troops that are called guerrillas here? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. These appear, from the accounts we have had, to be a very des- 
perate and reckless set of marauders? — A. When you look at their ante- 
cedents you will see it is only natural they should be. Those coming 
from Europe are liberated from Ceuta to fight in this war, having been 
under sentence for murder or other offense so serious as to make them 
liable to imprisonment in this penal settlement. No man goes there 
except under sentence of at least twenty years. In this war these jail 
birds are let loose to do what harm they can. 

Q. They form the guerrilla troops'? — A. Yes, sir; and they are added 
to by the local scoundrels. 

Q. Did you observe, personally, any of the alleged cruelties and bar- 
barities perpetrated by the guerrillas or by the Spanish army on the 
Cuban hospitals'? — A. No; T was not in a Cuban hospital when they 
murdered people, fortunately; but I have heard of many of these 
instances. I have talked with Spanish officers, and they have not 
denied it. They are only obeying orders, actual orders; not, under- 
stand me, acting on their own responsibility. Under the military laws 
prevailing in the four western provinces they have not oidy the right, 
but it is their duty, to shoot any man, woman, or child found outside 
the Spanish lines. 

Q. It amounts to this, that any man, woman, or child outside the 
Spanish lines in Cuba is outlawed 1 ? — A They have told me myself in 
different places where I went 

Q. The policy then is to exterminate the rural population by starva- 
tion, and those who do not come in are to be shot"? — A. Their orders are 
to shoot on sight. They say, " If we see a man on the road we shoot." 
They are perfectly justified so far as their orders are concerned. They 
are carrying out exactly the orders of the captain -general. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. What justification do they give for shooting women and chil- 
dren ? — A. The women might breed and the children may grow up. 

Q. Do they talk that way — say the women might breed and the chil- 
dren grow up? — A. Yes, sir; they are not averse, as you might imag- 
ine, to going on and describing fully what they mean and what they 
desire, and General Weyler is not unpopular among what you might 
call the most powerful section of the Spaniards in the Island of Cuba. 
On the contrary, he is quite popular. He is just the man they want. 
They believe with him in command this policy of extermination will be 
carried out to its logical conclusion. I remember, in Santa Clara, in 
the Club of Merchants, in the town of Santa Clara — it was at the time 
when it was proposed that Gen. Martinez Campos should come to 
Cuba — they said to me, these men of influence, unanimously, that "if 
Martinez Campos comes to the Island of Cuba and makes any proposi- 
tion of compromise as he had before we will shoot him in the streets of 
Havana. We do not want General Weyler removed, because he is our 
man. He is bloodthirsty, and he is the man we want. We do not 
know whether he will be successful, but he is going about it the right 
way." 

Q. Do you believe these sentiments to which you refer can be justly 
attributed to the party in Cuba called "Autonomists"? — A. The Auton- 
omists have been placed in a very awkward position. What they 
say — I know Montero very well; I knew him in Madrid. I never could 



406 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

tell when he w:is talking to me, whether he was talking what he 
thought was the truth or for the gallery. They were evidently deceived 
by the measure of administrative reform published last February. A 
different draft of it had been given out to Montero and different lead- 
ers of the Autonomist party, with which they were delighted, because 
it embodied all their platform, for which they had been fighting the 
last ten years, and they gave their unqualified adhesion to this docu- 
ment of reform. When the official scheme was finally published in the 
Official Gazette, they found they had been duped, and that Canovas 
had not given any such reforms as they had been promised, and some 
of them, like Dr. Lorin, left the country. He feared he could not stay 
there without expressing his opinion and going to oue of the penal set- 
tlements like Fernando Po. Montero stayed. .1 do not know whether 
he was a party to the trickery or not. He is a very poor man, and I 
do not think he could go. I really think he was duped himself, but 
the Autonomists are exceedingly few now. The reform measures, if 
they did nothing else, certainly served to reduce considerably the num- 
bers of the Autonomist party, who believed that even a good measure 
such as that of the Dominion of Canada would be a satisfactory solu- 
tion of the Cuban trouble. It was never considered seriously for a 
moment even by the Government before this proposed reform became 
known, but since it has been known nobody refers to it even, least of 
all General Weyler. He has no illusions as to it. It was simply con- 
ceived for effect on the civilized world, and especially on the United 
States. 

Q. Dave you seen parties of these guerrillas'? — A. Many of them. 

Q. Do they act independently or with the regular army? — A. They 
act quite independently. They are generally in better physical condi- 
tion than the regular army soldiers, so they are more active, get around 
more. 

Q. Are they mounted men"? — A. Generally; some on foot, but gen- 
erally mounted on these little Cuban ponies. 

Q. Are they enlisted in the army of Spain? — A. Yes; it is very dif- 
ficult to say exactly — their legal status has not been decided down 
there. They are generally local corps, very much as our national 
guardsmen, enlisted as soldiers, and then, by their own request, they 
are mobilized into the regular army under the orders of the military 
commander of the district in which they are stationed. 

Q. They report to him'!? — A. To him. They are directly under his 
command; like our militia companies if mustered in. In their activity 
they are not under him, but have their own officers and maraud the 
country. 

Q. Corresponding to the parties of rangers in the Confederate serv- 
ice? — A. Yes, sir; only they are mercenaries; they enlist for the pay. 

Q. Have you collected, to your own satisfaction, the figures in 
reference to the strength of the Spanish army; or, speaking in terms I 
prefer, the number of Spanish soldiers, including released prisoners 
from the African and other prisons, who have been carried to Cuba for 
the purpose of this war? — A. It is very easy to find out the numbers. 
They are variously estimated at between 220.000 and 230,000 men that 
have been brought over since the outbreak. 

Q. There were then soldiers on the island? — A. Yes, sir; there was 
then an army of 15,000 on the island when the outbreak occurred. 

Q. The regular standing army in Cuba? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They have never been free from that standing army? — A. No; 
never free from them. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 407 

Q. That standing army was about 15,000? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Not for the purpose of protection, but for the purpose of an estab- 
lishment? — A. They are a part of the Government. 

Q. A part of the establishment 1 ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Had it occurred to you that there was a large excess of troops 
brought over from Spain to Cuba 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; that had occurred to 
me. I thought the Spaniards could do better if they had fewer men. 

Q. Could take better care? — A. Yes, sir; the exposed area would be 
less. Their chief losses have been from sickness. . If they had 50,000 
or 00,000 men, grown men, not little boys; they have kept their best 
troops in Spain, and as the new conscripts came up each year they sent 
them out to Cuba. 

Q. I suppose that accounts for the remark generally made in regard 
to the Spanish army in Cuba, that it is an army of boys? — A. They are 
very young. 

Q. As a rule that is a fact? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They are not seasoned soldiers? — A. No, sir; you remarked that 
in the corporals, sergeants, and noncommissioned officers; they are just 
boys, too; have seen no service and are not steady. 

Q. Spain has a disciplined, matured, and experienced army at her 
command, I suppose? — A. They have 00,000 to 80,000 very good troops 
in Spain now. 

Q. They are kept in Spain? — A. They keep their best troops in Spain ; 
yes, sir. 

Q. For the purpose of conducting the Government there? — A. Yes, 
sir; to be prepared for emergencies; they have kept their best troops 
and their best officers. 

Q. Do you know anything of any company that lias the monopoly or 
the entire work of bringing over those troops and supplies from Spain 
to Cuba and carrying them back? — A. They are all brought in the 
steamers of the Company Trans- Atlantica, but I do not think it is a 
monopoly; I think they would be glad to turn it over to somebody 
else. They are carrying it from patriotic motives entirely. The Mar- 
quis Cornillas is a very patriotic man. He turned his ships over to the 
Government at the beginning of the Avar for this purpose and said they 
would keep a running account; it is still running. 

Q. Y'ou think the Government lias not paid for this transportation ? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That the account is still running up, unliquidated 1 ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. These trochas seem to require the presence of very large numbers 
of troops? — A. Certainly, very large numbers of troops are stationed 
along them. 

Q. Could you form an idea as to the number? — A. I have never been 
to the eastern trocha, but along the Mariel-Majana trocha there were 
about 15,000 men, supposed to be keeping the insurgents in Pinar del 
Rio that had gone to the west end of the island. 

Q. Have you known of any instance in which there were important 
military advantages gained over the insurgents by means of these 
trochas? — A. No; they always seem to me very senseless, very inedhe- 
val. I could not understand why they were built. They served no 
purpose, except to put thousands of men on their backs with fever 
from the turning up of this low, decaying soil. All along the trocha, 
the Mariel-Majana, or western trocha, the soldiers are buried in great 
numbers. I was told by one of the head surgeons in San Ambrosio 
hospital that they had reached Havana — they don't often send men 
there — that they had at least 12,000 fever cases from that trocha. 



408 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. The western trocha? — Yes, sir. 

Q. We have had several descriptions of these trochas. I would like 
you to describe the one you saw. — A. Of course, the trocha is not uni- 
form like a wall. In different places it is different. It has varied 
architecture with the nature of the ground. It is a sort of ditch — a 
cut. They dig this ditch and throw up the ground on one side. Every 
quarter of a mile or so they have a little fortin, according to the nature 
of the ground ; sometimes two ; where there is a gulch they have two 
forts, and in many places they have the barbed-wire fence to keep back 
cavalry. 

Q. What is about the width of the clearing through which it is 
constructed ? — A. The open space, with no trees'? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. It varies. Sometimes you go across a vega, and 
you would not see a tree for 3 or 4 miles. 

Q. Where they pass through the wooded districts'? — A. It varies. 
■Sometimes the trees come right up to the trocha and furnish protection. 
So far as I know I have never been with an insurgent band when they 
crossed the trocha, but it has never presented any obstacle to any of 
the insurgents that wanted to go in or out. 

Q. You would regard it as a failure in a military sense? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. But it requires the protection and attention of a great many men % — 
A. Yes, sir; and has cost a great many lives. 

Q. I wish you would describe the means of transportation the Spanish 
army employs when it leaves the central depot or commissary station 
to make an examination or incursion against the enemy. — A. When 
they go from Havana, they do not make any preparation at all, appar- 
ently. I am only speaking from personal knowledge. I spent three 
days with Spanish troops going from Havana to the town or city of 
Santa Clara, and they had what I had — only sugar cane we cut along 
the line of railroad. They made no preparation. When they go out, 
as they did from Santa Clara after Gomez, the three columns Weyler 
had converging on Santa Clara started out to drive Gomez across the 
eastern trocha or make him fight; they had no commissary arrangement. 
They had little bags in which they put what they had, but they had to 
go back within twenty-four or thirty six hours for provisions. 

Q. ISTo pack train? — A. No, sir; no mountain gun or train or any- 
thing. 

Q. They go with what supplies they can carry in their knapsacks or 
haversacks? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And must go back when their supply gives out? — A. Yes, sir; it 
necessarily makes the campaign a short one. 

Q. You speak of Weyler going after Gomez. At what point did they 
meet? — A. I do not think they met. I saw General Weyler in Santa 
Clara, at the high- water mark of tins campaign, and he then told me that 
it would result in the capture of Gomez or his retreat across the eastern 
trocha into the Cuban or free Cuba. But it did not. Within ten days 
Gomez gave news of himself, and he was in General Weyler's rear at 
that time. Weyler had marched all the way from Havana, and he had 
three columns that came into Santa Clara. He must have had 40,000 
men if he had one. 

Q. How many! — A. 40,000 men, and he had the best men that were 
left. 

Q. Was it in that campaign that Weyler attacked Gomez at the 
estate called La Beforma? — A. I do not know anything about that; I 
am told it was. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 409 

Q. What was your observation, or your reliable information, as to 
the condition of the Spanish army during the period you were there as 
to health ? — A. They were in wretched health. Hardly a man there that 
should have been with the colors. The hospitals were simply crowded. 
They had begun with this one military hospital of San Ambrosio, and 
they now have eight in Havana alone, and the people were crowded 
together, and half the men in camp were totally unfit for service — never 
should have been there — were doing more harm than good, not properly 
fed, not properly clothed, and, to begin with, were not proper men to 
send out. They were merely half grown boys. 

Q. Is the Spanish army in Cuba fed by distribution of rations at 
stated times or by the purchase of rations by the soldiery ? — A. Some- 
times one is the case and sometimes the other. 

Q. The system is not regular"? — A. I do not know. I suppose it 
depends on circumstances, and sometimes it depends on the wishes of 
the soldiers. Sometimes they have said they would rather have a. 
certain amount of money per day and take care of themselves. 

Q. In which case they could buy from the commissariat? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is the country capable, in its present condition, of furnishing sup- 
plies for the army of Spain? — A. No, sir; they are getting all their 
supplies, with the exception of the cattle, from outside of the Island of 
Cuba, 

Q. Have you any knowledge of tlie points from which they chiefly 
obtain their supplies for the army? — A. I have seen supplies that came 
from the United States and supplies that came from Cuba. I have seen 
bales of hay that came from New Orleans, coming for their cavalry in 
Pinar del Rio, that came to Havana on the New Orleans steamers. 

Q. Where do they get their coal for the steamers? — A. I do not know 
about that. I think there is coal on the Island of Cuba. 

Q. You speak of getting their cattle from the island. Do you mean 
that there are large herds of cattle now there on which the army can 
subsist? — A. They have a certain amount of cattle there, and outside 
their garrison towns you see a lot of cattle. 

Q. Do you know whether they are native cattle or imported? — A. 
Native cattle; they belong to the commissariat at those places. You 
can see them browsing, with a guard over them. 

Q. Plenty of green forage? Plenty of grazing for cattle in Cuba? — 
A. I do not know that; I should say there is plenty. They are not 
great big cattle like our cattle, and probably do not eat so much. They 
are more hardy, more like goats. I could not say there was any great 
amount of fodder; it is not a grass country. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. You speak of the portion of the country where you were? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Y r ou have not been in the mountains? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Did the Spanish army impress you as being one full of spirit and 
life? — A. No; they struck me as being very depressed and disheart- 
ened, and sick of the whole business; wanting to go home very much. 

Q. I believe you say you were not, at any time, in the Cuban lines, 
in the lines of the insurgents? — A. Not to my knowledge. 

Q. You were not with the Cuban forces ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Do you know anything of the fate of the correspondent — I think 
of the New Y^ork World — whose name was Govin? — A. Yes. sir. 



410 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. I wish you would tell what you know or what information you 
have as to him. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. What was his name? — A. Charles Govin. 

Q. Where was he born"? — A. I do not know anything about that 
except from information. He was born, as I understand, in the United 
States; in some State 

Q. Do you know what State? — A. I have it down somewhere, but I 
do not now remember. 

Q. Did you know him personally? — A. I did not. 

By Mr. Morg AN : 

Q. What account has been given of his death, and to what extent 
do you credit it as being true? — A. I will have to go back a little to 
answer that. When I went to Cuba Govin had been dead many 
months, and it was one of the old stories to which I, naturally having 
to write, did not pay much attention ; but one day I received permission 
to go to see the American prisoners in the castle. I do not believe 
they had been seen then by any American except the consul-general. 

Q. You obtained information which, in your opinion and judgment, 
you have a right to rely upon, from an eyewitness? — A. Not of his 
death. 1 talked. with all these prisoners. One of these men was born 
in Key West and he went to Cuba in the same expedition with which 
Govin went as a newspaper correspondent, and when they were cap- 
tured the Spanish tiecl them two by two, and this man was tied to 
Govin. You may remember that when the consul-general in Havana 
called the attention of the State Department to the fact that there was 
a rumor that this man had been murdered or killed the Spanish state- 
ment Of the case was very circumstantial, and various general officers 
gave their personal word that such was the case — that Govin was killed 
in a skirmish on a certain day. This man stated that he was tied to 
Govin and slept by his side two days after the Spanish officers gave 
their word as to the date of his being killed in a fight. This man stated 
that he, too, was an American citizen, but was clever enough not to 
claim American citizenship, and that is the reason he escaped with his 
life, while Govin claimed American citizenship and, according to this 
man's story, was cut to pieces with matchetes. The falsity of the 
Spanish story demonstrates the truth of his. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. What paper did he represent? — A. I do not know about that. I 
am told the Jacksonville Times-Democrat. I think he was born in 
Ohio. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. You visited the prison ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you see the Competitor prisoners? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. I suppose you have no knowledge of the circumstances of their 
alleged offense? That was committed long before you got there? — A. 
None from being on the spot; nothing except what they told me in my 
talk with them in their prison. 

Q. How were they treated in prison? — A. Very badly, in my opinion. 

Q. In what respects? — A. Their food was perfectly disgusting. 
When I saw Melton three months ago I telegraphed that I did not think 
the man would live six weeks. He is still alive. He was emaciated to 
an awful degree and in a terrible condition. He is not a rugged, hardy 
sailor man like the others. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 411 

Q. A young man? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. About how old, do you think"? — A. Not over 22 or 23. 

Q. Did he appear to be an intelligent man? — A. A very tine fellow 
in every way, 1 should say. He stands his imprisonment in the most 
plucky way; does not complain at all. He said he had written home to 
his people in Arkansas, and that they had received assurance from the 
Congressman of his district that everything was being done that could 
be done in Washington, and he was perfectly satisfied with that, that 
they were doing what they could, and he never complained. He said 
the food was very bad, and he could not eat. The captain of the 
Competitor told me that he never could eat; that he did not eat any- 
thing to amount to anything from the first. The man looks like a 
walking skeleton. He is a great big fellow — big framed and I do not 
suppose he weighs now over 90 pounds. He did not when I saw him. 

Q. Do you recollect the other names? — A. The captain's name was 
Laborde. I have the other names, but do not remember them all now. 
There is one supposed to be an Englishman, born in Liverpool. 

Q. Are they all in one cell? — A. No, sir; separated. They live in 
what they call galleries, thirty to forty in a dormitory. Melton and 
Laborde were in one and three or four in the other. When I went to 
see these men, I did not see them in their gallery; they were brought 
out. All I saw of the gallery was through the window. They do not 
allow you to see the cells. 

Q. While in Cuba did you have any personal knowledge of the treat- 
ment of the Cubans by the Spaniards when they captured them? — A. 
I saw a great nianj^ shot by due process of martial law who were said 
to have been in the insurgent ranks or broken the military rules. I 
saw them led out and shot. 

Q. Prisoners of war captured in action? — A. Very rarely; I think it 
was very rare they captured them in action. 1 think they were mostly 
captured under the terms to which the proclamation applied, and that 
therefore whoever found them had the legal right to shoot them down. 
They were brought in for the purpose of extracting information, and 
tried by summary court-martial, and then shot. 

Q. Did you see the man whose case you recited in the Review of 
Reviews? — A. Fidel Fundora. He was a cattleman living in the 
province of Matanzas, a native Cuban. I saw him after he had been 
tortured. 

Q. What was his condition? — A. Both his hands had been tortured 
by the thumb string, by tying his two thumbs together and increasing 
the pressure until the string cuts the thumbs off. Gangrene set in, 
and to save the man's life, which they wanted to save very mnch at 
that time, because they thought he had valuable information, they had 
to amputate both hands, which they did. I saw the stumps. 

Q. They tortured him to extract information? — A. Yes, sir; they 
thought he was acting for the Junta in Matanzas in making this ship- 
ment; they wanted to know who he was acting for in making it. 

Q. What was the charge against him, or the facts that led to this 
torture? — A. The charge was — I do not imagine any specific charge 
was ever made; they do not do that — but the charge they might have 
made was sending ammunition or supplies to the enemy, or sending 
food or supplies of any kind, which is forbidden by the bando, or 
proclamation. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. I understand that he was charged with shipping a package pur- 



412 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

porting - to contain hides outside the lines, and they got hold of it and 
found it contained medicines and antiseptics, etc., and seized it? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. That was the state of facts that led to his torture? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Where did you see him ? — A. I saw him going out of the head- 
quarters of the civil guard at Matanzas, where he had been under 
examination of some kind. 

Q. He refused to disclose any information"? — A. Yes, sir. He had 
been under examination for many weeks. This day he was coming out 
from some hearing that had been going on, where he had been brought 
from his prison. That was the first I had heard of this case. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. His hands had been then amputated? — A. Yes, sir. 
Q. What was his ultimate fate"? — A. I do not know; since I left the 
island I have not heard. 

By Mr. DAVIS : 

Q. You understand he refused to disclose anything? — A. He did. 
At least once, and I believe twice, he had been led out into the yard 
with the belief that he was to be shot, and they led him out to the court- 
yard where they shoot men. The priest had given the last sacrament 
and the order had been given to fire and they had either fired blank 
or over the man's head. I did not see that; I believe Mr. Consul Bryce 
saw it. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Their purpose was to get some supposed important information 
from him? — A. Yes, sir; they believed he was acting for the junta in 
Matanzas, and they would get 10 or 12 more people to kill if he would 
betray them. 

Q. Do you know the general estimate in the part of Cuba where you 
were as to the strength of Gomez's forces ? — A. It varies even with the 
people who have been with Gomez, whether Americans, English, or 
Cubans. Each time it is a different statement. I think from what I 
have heard that at times his forces are larger than at others, very often 
owing to tbe exigencies of his military positions. He divides into 
smaller bodies, then brings them together if he wants them for military 
operations. I believe it is a compact body of men generally. 

Q. What is the estimate in Havana generally of the general strength 
of the insurrectionary forces? — A. All through the island? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. I have heard Spanish officers of the general staff 
say they had at least 40,000 armed men, armed in a modern way with 
rifles, altogether throughout the island. I think the Spanish have 
good information on that point. 

Q. Is it your opinion, from all you saw there, that it is possible for 
the Spanish army to conquer, subdue, or pacify the Cuban people? — A. 
It is not. 

Q. Do you think it possible, under existing circumstances, for the 
Cubans to drive the Spaniards from the island? — A. I do not; but the 
existing circumstances can not continue very long. If the Spaniards 
were able to keep their present state of finances and military effective- 
ness, and that sort of thing, for a long time, I think it would be 
impossible for the Cubans to drive them out, if they did not receive a 
large increase of force. But the Spaniard is in the position of a man 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 413 

who is undergoing a severe illness and who does not know when his 
vitality will give way. The strain is such that he is being weakened 
every day. 

Q. What is the condition of local finances in Cabal? — A. Do you 
refer to the money? 

Q. Yes, sir; to the money in circulation and the sorts of money and 
its value as compared with gold and silver"? — A. They have all sorts of 
money in Cuba. They have gold and silver, and then they have notes, 
which compared to gold are depreciated very much. 

Q. About how much? — A. $4.80 in gold is worth $15 in paper. 

Q. How much in silver? — A. About $8 or $9 in coin. These things 
have changed very much since I left Havana; it is worse. The depre- 
ciation of the note is going on steadily. 

Q. Are the Spanish soldiers paid in gold, silver, or paper"? — A. They 
are paid in paper for one month. You see, they are paying them now 
for last fall ; they are in arrears four or five months with the pay. 
Within the last two months they did pay a portion of one month in 
silver — in metallic, as they call it — in metal. As a general thing they 
pay in paper. 

Q. Do they complain of it — the officers and soldiers? — A. Yes, sir; 
the civil guard — that division of the army numbers about 25,000 men — ■ 
have raised a big row, and threatened mutiny almost, because, under 
some statutes under which they were organized, it was promised that 
they should be paid in gold. 

Q. What is the civil guard? — A. The corps of elite, you might call 
it. The officers are all army officers, have the same education, and are 
chosen for their higher abilities, and the men are all men who have 
served with credit in the regular army and then reenlisted in the civil 
guard. In old Spain they are mounted constabulary, who patrol from 
one end to another. They go by pairs up and down on the Spanish 
roads. 

Q. Are the civil guard enlisted for general service in Cuba or for 
local service"? — A. For general service. 

Q. In addition to that, have they any home guard or local guard"? — 
A. They have what they call The Volunteers; it is a sort of national 
guard for the Island of Cuba, composed entirely of Spaniards. It is a 
guard for affairs in the island, the volunteers, as they are called. It is 
a body of men — you have heard of the massacre of the students in 
1 870 committed by them. They are very powerful ; it is an influence. 
Every Captain-General has to take them into his calculations. One or 
two Captain-Generals — among them General Dulce — were sent back to 
Spain by them. They took him down and put him on the steamer, and 
sent him back to Spain. I only mention this to show their influence. 

Q. They are called volunteers? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They belong to the array? — A. No, sir. 

Q. An independent force? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. But loyal to the Spanish crown? — A. Yes, sir; they are mostly 
officeholders, men in the different Government bureaus, shopkeepers, 
planters, men who are only in Cuba for a few years. 

Q. Are these men required to go to any part of the island that the 
captain -general may order them to, or are they organized and enlisted 
for home guard or local purposes? — A. I think they are under their 
own organization and regulation, but they would have to obey the 
Captain-General's orders; the Captain-General is their commander in 
chief, and they would have to obey his orders, but he has never given 
them any orders for this war. 



414 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. From your description, I am led to suppose that pretty nearly the 
whole adult male Spanish population belongs to the army in some form 
or another? — A. They are in the army or in the volunteers. Since the 
beginning of the war the volunteers have done nothing but serenade 
various generals or victorious chiefs, or meet them at the railway sta- 
tion. They have not been under fire much. 

Q. In one way or another the adult male Spanish population is nearly 
all connected with the army?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q, In the army in some form or another? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And the insurgent population was supposed to be in the army of 
the Republic? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Then there is a class called pacificos, as I understand, who do not 
belong to either? — A. In my opinion, the pacificos are the members of 
the patriot families — the women and children and old men — who are not 
capable of bearing arms. 

Q. Then, in the Island of Cuba, almost every man who owes alle- 
giance to Spain is in one or the other army in some form or another? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. The whole population engaged in war in one way or another? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. No neutrals, if I understand, except the foreigners? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And the women and children? — A. Yes, sir; they may be neutrals 
so far as active taking up of arms are concerned, but they are very 
few. All the Spaniards, with the exception of a few tobacco buyers 
and planters, and so on, are in the employ of their Government; they 
are officeholders in some way. 

Q. The same is true of the parts of the country occupied by the 
Cubans? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. So it is an internecine war? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And extends through all classes of society, in one way or the 
other? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Did you meet any of these chiefs of the Spanish irregulars? — A. 
I knew Foudaviela, the Guanabacoa man. 

Q. What was his business? — A. He was in the regular Spanish 
army, an officer detailed for the military command of the town of 
Guanabacoa; he is in the regular army. 

Q. Did you, in the course of your investigations in the island, dis- 
cover any American citizens among those who have been driven into 
the Spanish stations of concentration? — A. Xo, sir. 

Q. You saw none at Matanzas? — A. There were at least 20 Ameri- 
cans who were living in the house of our consul of Matanzas, Mr. 
Bryce. He was supporting them very charitably. They were people 
whose means of livelihood had been swept away by the war, and who 
had been living in Matanzas. They were not of the country population, 
but were absolutely destitute. 

Q. What area on that hillside do these nine or ten thousand people 
occupy — what space does it cover? — A. Perhaps 20 acres. 

Q. Are the houses laid out in any order, in the way of streets? — A. 
Oh, no; only in lines. 

Q. How much space between the houses? — A. About 20 feet. They 
were huts made of palms. 

Q. Was the filth removed, or suffered to accumulate? — A. Suffered 
to accumulate; but they were in an advantageous position, as they 
were on the hillside, and the filth washed down; nothing like the 
condition of those living in the swamps. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 415 

Q. Those concentrados were mostly women and children and old 
men? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Where did you understand the able-bodied men were gone? — A. 
I understood — it was a question I never spoke about, but I understood 
they were with the patriot forces of the Island of Cuba. 

Q. Have you made any estimate of the forces of these concentrados 
driven in? — A. Yes, sir; not from statistics 

Q. From the best information you have? — A. I believe, in the four 
western provinces, there has been concentrated at least 400,000 people. 

Q. Living in the conditions you have detailed? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That implies total depopulation of the other parts of both prov- 
inces? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you visibly see that result as to the country outside those 
Spanish stations? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. It means depopulation? — A. Yes, sir; absolutely. It is pro- 
claimed officially that nobody is allowed to live there, and anybody 
living there is an insurgent, and to be shot on sight. 

Q. Please state what your information and knowledge is in regard to 
the Ruiz matter. — A. The day that this man was found dead in his cell, 
in February last, I met General Lee in Havana, and he told me that he 
had heard of an American citizen who had been found dead, or, as he 
understood it, murdered, in his cell in the Guanabacoa prison, and as 
Mr. Springer, the vice-consul, who was the only man attached to the 
legation who spoke Spanish, was in Washington, he asked me to go 
with him as his interpreter. 

Q. You speak Spanish fluently? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you go as a representative of the Government? — A. No; he 
wanted me to go as a citizen, but I had recently been in the United 
States diplomatic service, and possibly that was the reason he asked 
me. He got Dr. Burgess, the American doctor in Havana, and we 
reached Guanabacoa a little before noon. We went first to the palace 
and saw General Ahumada, who was second in command, General 
Weyler being out in the country. General Lee demanded the body for 
the purpose of an autopsy, and Ahumada telegraphed to Guanabacoa, 
granting this permission. When we reached the jail, Fondaviela, the 
military governor, Maruru, the civil alcalde, and various other people, 
the doctor who was supposed to have attended this man, the jailer, and 
various officials of the jail were present. 

The man was lying in a large cell, almost as large as this room, but 
the doctor told me that when he was called the night before to see this 
man that he was in another cell, a cell which I did not fully see, but 
which I will describe as well as I can later. This man, after he had been 
killed — or driven mad by his treatment, which I consider equally murder, 
had killed himself — had been removed from that cell to the largerone. All 
the cells, with the exception of three, one of which I afterwards found 
out was the cell in which Ruiz had been imprisoned during his lifetime, 
opened onto the court. These three little cells were down a passageway 
off the courtyard. We went in and examined the body of the man, 
and while waiting for the Spanish physicians to be present while Dr. 
Burgess performed the autopsy, I talked with many of the prisoners in 
these cells. The bars were opened. They were men, many of these 
fellows, prisoners for ordinary offenses. Some twenty were men impris- 
oned under the same suspicion as was the pretext for locking up Ruiz, 
that he and they had something to do with the capture of the train at 
Guanabacoa, when Aranguren captured a train with ten officers, took 
them off and hung two of them, Cubans by birth — traitors, as he con- 



416 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

sidered them — and sent back the Spaniards to their lines. These men 
all stated that Ruiz had been horribly treated; that his cries had been 
piteous; that night after night men would go to his cell, and one of 
these men stated that the night before, what they supposed was the night 
of Ruiz's death, for they never heard his voice again, that Fonda viela, 
the military governor, and Marury, the alcalde — the jailer — had come 
about 10 o'clock. These men had a big cell on the courtyard, and could 
see about everybody who came along the narrow passageway on which 
were these cells, in one of which Ruiz was imprisoned. They described 
that cell and I went and looked at it. It was located — you could not 
measure it. They had a little aperture where they could pass in food, 
and looking through there I should say it was about 5 feet 6 by 3 feet 
6, about 7 feet high. It may have been a few inches longer, as I say it 
was impossible to measure it, and it was almost dark there, and I could 
only look through this ventilator or peeping place. Dr. Burgess and 
Mr. Lee also saw it. 

Q. What did these other prisoners think was being done to Ruiz 
while he was uttering those cries? — A. That he was being beaten for 
the purpose of getting him either to confess what he miglit know, or 
what he did not know. 

Q. Did they profess to hear the sounds of the beating? — A. Yes, sir; 
they said they could hear the sounds of blows distinctly. 

They then carried Ruiz's body from the prison to the city hall, and 
finally the two Spanish surgeons turned up and the autopsy began. I 
was present and saw this. I helped carry the body myself and put it on 
the slab. Dr. Burgess stripped him of all his clothes and the regular 
medical autopsy was performed. In the first place, it was evident — 
according to the Spanish story this man had only been dead about five 
hours when we got there, but the state of decay in which he was 
would lead you to believe that he had been dead for at least thirty hours, 
although, of course, decay sets in very rapidly there. His whole right 
hand was crunched up and mashed as if the componte, or at least a 
very crushing torture, had been used. 

Q. That is a mode of torture used? — A. Yes, sir; I have never 
seen it. 

Q. You say the hand was crushed. In what way? — A. The hand 
was out of shape. I have seen a man very badly hurt at football or 
crushed by a horse, and it was something like that, crushed up 
together [illustrating], but it was hard to get at its condition exactly, 
owing to the state of mortification; but it was not all mortification, 
because the other hand was perfect. The forearm of the right arm, 
the arm with which a man would naturally defend himself from blows, 
was all marked with welts. They were bruises like those received in 
single stick without a basket, the same kind of welts that would be 
received from blows made from a hickory stick. Dr. Burgess examined 
his head very carefully. Ruiz was a man of long black hair. Right at 
the top 

Q. What we call the crown? — A. Yes, sir. Dr. Burgess shaved the 
hair away, and there was disclosed a wound about an inch and a half 
long and about three-quarters of an inch across. This wound was a 
severe one, but had not fractured the skull. 

Q. Did it cut the scalp? — A. Yes, sir; the bone was laid bare, but 
the bone was not fractured. The investigation showed that he had 
died from concussion of the brain, caused by the impact of this blow. 

Q. Did Dr. Burgess make a declaration to this effect in the presence 
of the Spanish officials? — A. I do not think that he made any statement 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 417 

whatever. They brought out a long written statement they wanted 
Dr. Burgess to sign (Dr. Burgess and Mr. Lee), and they would not 
sign it. 

Q. To what did that statement attribute his death? — A. To accident; 
that he had died; met death at his own hands, or something of that 
kind. Neither Dr. Burgess nor General Lee would sign any statement 
at all, and the Spanish officials were very much displeased with that. 
We went to see the widow, General Lee and myself and various other 
people, including the brother-in-law, to get all the information we could 
as to the circumstances of the case. There were a great many stories, 
some of which reached General Lee entirely through Spanish sources. 
This man had married into a Spanish family. His wife was a Catalan, 
and all her relatives were Spanish, and there were various stories from 
them describing how this man had been murdered in his cell, I do not 
know whether true or not; but it seems to me that the stand taken by 
General Lee on the matter was a proper one, and that stand was that 
whether the man met his death at the hands of one of his jailors or, 
after being subjected to this treatment for fifteen days, he went mad 
and killed himself, it was all murder. 

Q. What was this governor's name? — A. Fondaviela. 

Q. These prisoners fixed the hour, the time of Ruiz's death, by the 
cessation of his cries'? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did they say anything to you as to whether, on the night before 
his cries ceased, these Spanish officers went to his cell? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Who were with him? — A. Fondaviela, and the alcalde, Marury, 
and several jailers. 

Q. What did they say to you, if anything, as to hearing the sound of 
blows or cries from Buiz after these men went to his cell? — A. They 
stated that they did hear cries which lasted up to 11 o'clock, and they 
said that he was evidently being tortured in a terrible way. 

Q. Did they say whether the cries ceased gradually or suddenly? — 
A. They did not say. 

Q. Did they see these Spanish officials come out that night? — A. 
They were not able to see them either go in or come out of the cell; 
they saw them go down the passageway and come out of that passage- 
way about 11 o'clock at night; they could not see them enter the cell 
itself. 

Q. Did they overhear any conversation? — A. They did not. 

By Mr. Mo-UG-AN: 

Q. You did not have an opportunity of seeing the cell in which Ruiz 
died? — A. I saw it through an opening. 

Q. You did not see it distinctly? — A. I could not see as to the exact 
measurements; I could see that the floor of the cell was covered with 
human excrement, and it was in the same condition when he spent 
fifteen days in it. 

Q. When you saw the body, it was in one of the larger cells, and 
was carried from there to the city hall? — A. Yes, sir; to the city hall 
building. 

Q. Was the body dressed for burial when you saw it in the larger 
cell ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you know who did that? — A. His wife sent around a suit of 
clothes for her husband, but, as she met a man walking on the streets 
the next day wearing this suit of clothes, she concluded that her hus- 
band was not buried in them. 

Q. Was Madam Ruiz at the autopsy ? — A. No, sir. 
27 



418 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Did you see anything of the piece of furniture spoken of, which 
she sent to hiin — a chair? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you examine it? — A. Yes, sir; very carefully. 

Q. Did you see an inscription on it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What was it? — A. It was a long inscription, about eight or nine 
lines long. It was about this: "Good by, Rita," tbat is the name of his 
wife. He then mentioned the names of his live children, good-bye to 
each one of those. He said: " Be obedient to your mother," and then 
there was a very curious expression nobody understood. " If they take 
me to Havana, tell all." Then the last word: "Me maten" — they are 
killing me. That was the last word of one of the last sentences. It 
was a long inscription. It was on the seat of something like a summer 
chair, that had a soft, thick varnish, and all around this and the arm 
the man had cut it with his linger nails. It began on the right side and 
ran all around the rim. I understand it is at the State Department 
now. I saw it in the consulate general at Havana. 

Q. Where did you first see it? — A. At the consulate-general's. 

Q. You did not see it on the day of the autopsy? — A. No, sir; the 
jailer had a very kind hearted wife, and she had taken pity on the con- 
dition of this prisoner, who could not sit down or lie down except in his 
own filth, and who was so patient in it all. Mrs. Ruiz had come to see 
her husband several times, but was never allowed to see him, and one 
day she asked her to slip a chair in to him, and this was the way this 
chair was got in, on the thirteenth day of his imprisonment, and prob- 
ably in the intervals of his torture he had written these words with his 
fingers. 

Q. Any question raised in the autopsy, in the presence of the Span- 
ish officials, as to whether he had been incommunicado during all the 
time of his imprisonment? — A. It was never denied; it was admitted. 
Fondavielas said so, Marury said so, the jailer said so. They did not 
begin to deny that that morning; they had not well schooled Dr. Vidal 
when he came in. He was over at the military hospital when he was 
sent for, and when he came into the large, well-lighted, spacious hall 
he said: "You have brought him in here, have you?" He had not 
then been well instructed that the Spanish contention was to be that 
he had been in that cell during all the course of his imprisonment. 

Q. Are the executions of the prisoners at Morro Castle and elsewhere 
frequent? — A. The shootings? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. They are very frequent; I have seen many at the 
fortress of San Severino, at Matanzas, from a distance; I went to one, 
was as close as to you, at Havana; I felt it my duty to go and see one 
of the poor boys shot in the laurel ditches there at Havana; the others 
I saw were from a distance, and because I could not help seeing them; 
the lists are kept in the fortresses publicly, and anybody can go — thou- 
sands do go. In Havana, all through the early spring, certainly the 
average of executions w r as more than a man a day. Many of the morn- 
ings four or more were killed. This morning that I went a man told 
me a Spaniard said there would certainly be either a shooting or a 
garroting, both or either of which he thought would be interesting, and 
so I went. 

Q. Is there anything further you wish to add? — A. No, sir. 

The foregoing is a correct transcript of my testimony, given before 
the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 
11, 1897. 

Stephen Bonsal. 

New York, June 22. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 419 



STATEMENT OF DR. F. R. WINN ON THE 21ST DAY OF JUNE, 1897. 

Dr. Winn was sworn by Senator Morgan. 
By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. What is your name, age, and place of residence? — A. F. R. Winn; 
residence, Sherman, Tex. 

Q. What is your profession? — A. Doctor — physician. 

Q. Have you been in Cuba recently! — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When did you return from there? — A. I returned on last 
Wednesday. 

Q. Are you a surgeon in the Cuban army? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is your rank? — A. Captain. 

Q. When were you made a captain in the Cuban army? — A. The 
18th of April. 

Q. Of the present year? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Had you been with that army before that time? — A. No, sir. 

Q. From what point did you go to join the army? — A. Havana. 

Q. Havana? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Where is your place of residence? — A. Sherman, Tex. 

Q. When you first went to the army, with whom did you connect 
yourself as surgeon? — A. General Castillo. 

Q. Where was he? — A. At the time he was near Managua. 

Q. In what province? — A. Havana. 

Q. Since that time with whom have you served in that capacity? — 
A. With 

Q. Sir? — A. I was head of the capitan de sanidad, chief of the sani- 
tary corps. I was made chief of the sanitary corps. 

Q. A place in independent command of the sanitary corps? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. Of the entire army? — A. Oh, no; of that province. 

Q. To whom do you report as chief of the sanitary corps ? — A. No one. 

Q. From whom do you take orders? — A. From the chief of province. 

Q. The chief medical director? — A. No, sir; the chief of the army. 

Q. Of the province? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Since you have been in the army as surgeon, have you been with 
General Gomez? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Have you seen him ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. You were only with General Castillo? — A. I was with the sanitary 
corps; I did not go with the general at all unless it was on some 



420 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

commission or at his request. I would go with liim to some part of the 
province iu anticipation of a fight, to be close to where he expected 
wounded men. He would ask me to go to the field, but otherwise I 
would spend my time visiting the hospitals. 

Q. In what province have you been since you have been in Cuba? — 
A. Havana province all the time, except three days when I crossed the 
trocha into Pinar del Rio. 

Q. What arrangements have the Cuban insurgents in respect to hos- 
pital service? — A. The Cuban hospital is a patch of brush— which in 
that country is very scarce; there is no uncultivated country — and 
their wounded men are carried after the battle, or a man who is unable 
to mount his horse from sickness, is carried into this brush, and for each 
man unable to use himself we must have two nurses, two men to carry 
him, in case of an invasion by the Spanish army. I had six of these 
hospitals under my personal supervision, and I moved them about fif- 
teen times in about twenty days, making an average ot about a day and 
a half for each position for hospital. The Spaniards would come to a 
hospital and they would machete everybody they caught, nurses, 
wounded, sick, doctors, or anybody else, and on that account they 
would have to break up and get out of there, and they would get into 
the brush and hide until night, and then sneak away to another brush 
hospital, and remain there until the Spanish invaded that brush, and 
then go back to the other brush, and so on. 

Q. How did you get any hospital supplies to provide for these estab- 
lishments there? — A. In every way possible. They send some supplies 
on expedition, but it was very little. I do not remember having seen 
any quinine among the medicines sent on expeditions, but I did receive 
some disinfectants, bichloride of mercury, and some bandages. I 
bought most of my supplies from the town, my chloroform, instruments, 
and everything of that sort. 

Q. How did you get access to the town to make these purchases? — 
A. I would have a man in commission near the town, and the concen- 
trados would come out after sweet potatoes, and the insurgents regard 
the sweet potatoes as belonging to them and do not allow them to be 
carried into the town without the tax being paid. Those we could trust 
we allowed to carry sweet potatoes in and had them in our service, and 
furnished them money to buy medicine. 

Q. They would smuggle it out to you? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is there any prohibition against furnishing you medicine on the 
part of the Spanish? — A. Yes, sir; it is much more difficult to get med- 
icine than it is to get ammunition or arms. You can buy a rifle or 
ammunition at any time, the soldiers sell them, but the medicine is sold 
in the drug store, and no one is allowed to buy medicine without a doc- 
tor's prescription, and the doctors are usually in the Spanish Govern- 
ment in the towns. 

Q. What about the strength of the insurgent forces in the part of 
the territory you have been in? — A. Some time early in May the Herald 
correspondent at Havana sent a question to that effect to General Cas- 
tillo, which he asked me to answer to the Herald correspondent. The 
general sent his chief of staff with the records to my hospital at Menocal, 
and at the same time furnished me with an escort and placed an officer 
at my disposal to visit all the offices in the province and get their records, 
and I copied from them, and with all the reports from the offices I sent 
to I summed up 4,700 men armed and in operation, and we estimated 
the recruits from all sources were equal to the losses from all sources, 
and in that report I had then there were 4,700 men armed and present. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 421 

Q. In that department? — A. Yes, sir. That excluded those in hos- 
pitals and those in commissions, collecting taxes, etc. 

Q. Are those troops well provided with subsistence and clothes'? — 
A. Well provided with subsistence — that is, healthy, plain nourishment, 
sweet potatoes, beef chicken, salt — but very poorly clothed, because 
they are a people that had never been in the habit of wearing much 
clothing, usually only an undershirt and a pair of trousers; in fact, I 
was well treated with a shirt and pair of trousers myself, but it is pos- 
sible for a man to dress as well as he likes to if he has money. 

Q. What arrangements, in the province you have been in — Havana, 
I believe you say — if any, for the maaufacturs of shoes or clothing by 
the Cubans ? — A. ]SToue at all. The province is so small and the country 
so open there is no place to hide, and to establish any factory of that 
kind it would be necessary to put the whole force around it to guard 
it, and Spain is able to send 10,000 men to any point at any time. The 
towns are only a mile apart, or 2 miles at the most, and it is much 
easier to buy from the towns, and we do that altogether. 

Q. Have you seeu any factories or establishments of any kind in 
Cuba for the manufacture of shoes or clothing in any part of the island 
you have been to? — A. ~No, sir. 

Q. Do you know, by common reputation, whether such establishments 
exist? — A. Yes, sir; in the eastern part of the island, and down as near 
as Santa Clara, the Cubans manufacture saddles and these pouches in 
which they carry ammunition, etc., and secretaries' pouches, shoes, and 
most anything they want. 

Q. Havana Province, then, is one that is open and has a number of 
towns in it? — A. Yes, sir; it is the smallest Province in the island. 
You can ride across it either way in a day, easily. 

Q. Has it a heavy rural population outside of the towns ? — A. It has 
had before the war, but not now. 

Q. Why? — A. They have concentrated in the towns until the radius 
of concentration in the little towns out there is not more than — well, in 
the largest towns outside of Havana the radius of concentration is not 
more than a mile. 

Q. How much? — A. A mile. They have concentrated, outside of the 
city of Havana, about 80,000 paisanos — farmers. 

By Mr. Clark : 

Q. About how many? — A. Eighty thousand. 
By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Does that cover the whole province, or one locality? — A. The 
whole province. 

Q. In the province of Havana the concentrados number about 
80,000? — A. Yes, sir; outside of the city. 

Q. What class of people constitute these concentrados? — A. Small 
farmers, renters, what we would call in this country, I suppose, tenant 
farmers; a good many storekeepers. Out there they have these small 
stores scattered all over the country. It is a very old country, and 
near the sugar plantations or iu the thickly settled community they 
would have five or six of these small grocery stores to sell groceries, 
small articles, and drinks, etc. — to sell everything; and those people 
have been scattered and their stores burned. They are loyal; but the 
greater part of the concentrados are little farmers who were unable to 
get out of the island, and did not care to join the insurgents, and 
wanted to get to town; lived iu bad houses, which the Spaniards 
burned. The Spaniards burned all these houses, all the wooden houses. 



422 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Was that generally through the Province of Havana, the burning 
of houses of the common people! — A. Complete; all burnt; none left 
standing. 

Q. None at all? — A. None at all; not a house left standing outside 
of the fortification. 

Q. Have you been about these concentration settlements after the 
people had been concentrated? — A. No, sir; but I have seen them. 
They come out for sweet potatoes. 

Q. You have not been among them? — A. Yes, sir; about twelve 
hours, while coming into Havana. 

Q. Describe them as to health, means of subsistence, shelter, clothing, 
etc. — A. They have no way of earning a living. If they care to take the 
fruits which grow inside the concentrated lines to town to sell they 
must pay the Spanish officers half they receive; if they take the sweet 
potatoes in the field they must pay a tax on them and then sell them 
and pay the Spanish officers half; and, consequently, they are not able 
to earn a livelihood. They are lucky if they get enough to eat, and very 
few of them do get enough to eat. Those who are in better circum- 
stances, who have enough money and are not in sympathy with the 
insurrection, who carried in the cattle with them, live along, kill one 
of the cattle once in a while, and sometimes a hog, and live better than 
the Cubans, and manage to get along. The Cubans who are concen- 
trated are not able to earn anything. They left their cattle in the fields 
and were not able to bring in anything. They were ordered to town 
immediately, their house was burnt, and they lost everything. You 
can build a house in any part of the island — you can build it in fifteen 
or twenty minutes. 

Q. What sort of a house is that? — A. It amounts to about as much as 
a tent in America. It is a palin-leaf hut ; it is dry — keeps out the water. 
Concentrated line will be strung out about these towns under the com- 
mand of one general. Another general will come to town and say, 
"This line is too big; you have too much communication with the insur- 
gents; come in here; make the lines smaller." Then they burn the 
houses again and move them in closer. In a month or so anothei 
genera] will come to town, and he will say, "The people are too many 
here; the lines are too close; there is too much disease," and he will 
move them out. In another month or so another general will come to 
town, and he will move them in again, and consequently they are kept 
constantly moving. Disease is very rife; they die fast, are killed by 
the soldiers, exposed to all sorts of indignities, have very little to eat, 
and no clothes, and consequently are in very bad condition. 

Q. You speak of sweet potatoes. Do they cultivate them themselves 
or are they native growth? — A. No; the potatoes in the province have 
been planted by people who lived there before the concentration, but 
the crops continue. The rainy season has come now, and it will rot the 
crop; but as soon as the rain is over they will spring up again, almost 
as good as the other crop. 

Q. Does that continue without intermission? — A. Yes, sir. The 
yucca does not rot; that continues to grow, anyhow. 

Q. Is that about what these people have to subsist on, what they get 
out of the earth ? — A. Yes, sir ; and fruits. 

Q. What is the effect (you are a physician and you saw the people — 
you say you came through their lines) on their health and general con- 
dition ? — A. It is terrible. 

Q. In what regard? — A. They are without food, without any meaus 
of earning a livelihood, and they have absolutely nothing to do but to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 423 

stay iuside the Hues and sleep about like so many cattle concentrated 
in the pens; consequently when disease strikes a household they go, one 
after another, until all are dead. 

Q. The mortality is great? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Can you identify, from personal knowledge any of that mortality 
as from starvation"? — A. I do not know that I could say that any had 
actually starved to death, but I have seen, in a house the size of this 
room, twenty sick people. 

Q. What disease? — A. Fever, malaria, and what they call peludica 
and chagres — I do not think it exists in this country — and the other 
diseases to which the Cubans are subject, smallpox — no yellow fever; 
Cubans do not have yellow fever. You might say smallpox, dysentery, 
and malaria. 

Q. Do you mean a native Cuban does not have yellow fever? — A. 
Well, take a Cuban out of the mountains and bring him down into the 
bottoms, to a settlement where malaria and yellow fever are rank, and 
it is possible be may have it, but as a general thing native Cubans are 
inured to yellow fever; they do not have it. 

Q. Are these other diseases largely fatal 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; malaria is one 
of the most fatal diseases where it is allowed to run its course, as they 
do where they have no money to buy quinine. It is not if it is checked 
by the use of quinine. 

Q. Are these little palm leaf huts furnished with any furniture or 
conveniences for living? — A. No, sir. Some have a chair — you can get 
a chair pretty near any place in the island. I could camp any place in 
the Province and have a chair to sit down on in five minutes. The 
whole island is strewn with chairs, sewing machines, tables, and house- 
hold articles, etc. 

Q. Broken out of the houses? — A. Yes, sir. These concentrados can 
not come out for them, and they make their chairs and provide the 
houses pretty well. 

Q. By whom has this wreck of the houses been conducted and car- 
ried on? — A. The large stone houses, of which there were a good many 
in that Province — the wealthy people's houses — were destroyed by the 
insurgents, as they regarded them as possible fortifications for the Span- 
ish army. The little wooden houses, the small houses, were destroyed 
by the Spaniards. 

Q. You speak about the hospitals in Cuba having been invaded by 
the Spaniards — the Cuban hospitals. Have you any personal knowl- 
edge of such raids? — A. Yes, sir; a good deal of it. 

Q. Proceed to tell the instances, as near as you can the dates, of 
these different cases? — A. The first invasion I remember, that I had 
anything to do with, was about the 1 st of May. I had established an 
emergency hospital in a place called El Ojo de Agua, near Managua. 

Q. One of these brush hospitals? — A. Yes, sir; alongside the 
mountain 

Q. You mean you had constructed your hospital house out of the 
palm you have just been mentioning. Is that the way you constructed 
these brush hospitals? — A. Usually we just get into the brush and lie 
on the ground. When the Spanish invade hospitals you have not the 
time to carry away hammocks and fixtures, and it takes two or three 
days to get out and get the leaves and bring them into the brush, ion 
must let the leaves fall, for you can not climb the tree, and before you 
have time to construct your house you must move. 



424 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Clark : 

Q. Your hospital is simply a location in a brush ? — A. Yes, sir. If 
we are allowed to stay forty-eight hours, we will have some houses; if 
we have to move earlier than that, we will not. 

This first place I thought was a very safe place. I do not think I 
would have gone in there at the head of an ariny myself. I only had 
an emergency hospital there. It was close to where the forces were 
operating, and the other hospitals were rife with infectious disease, and 
I wanted an acute surgical hospital, and to avoid infection and get 
better results I established this hospital, and had received about fifteen 
patients and about twenty-five visiting patients — men wounded in the 
arm, leg, or anywhere, and unable to right. Men will not go to the 
hospital as long as they are able to walk. Coming quite often, they 
made big trails, and one morning I got up — I slept in the brush out in the 
wood ; I never slept in the open — I came down and I saw about ten or fif- 
teen wounded men on the floor, and I asked where there had been a battle. 
They said the hospital at Menocal had been invaded and these men had 
come from there. I dressed the people — they had old and snppuratiug 
wounds that had never been dressed, any of them, but 1 dressed all their 
wounds and attended to them and my people, and about 12 o'clock had 
them very comfortably located. About 12 o'clock there began to come in 
more patients, and they told me they came from Lastre ; the hospital had 
been invaded the day before. That was established about 7 or 8 miles 
from there. By night they began to come in from a place called La Lona 
de Santa Barbara. I had about that time sixty-five patients, wounded 
men unable to walk. I did not like it much, and I sent out word to 
the other hospitals to stay away from me, as I did not want to get that 
hospital full of infection, and I would visit at their places. The next 
morning at daybreak the soldiers were in the hospital. I did not 
have any armed men; I had arms myself which I proposed to use to 
protect my own life on any man I had to deal with. About 4 o'clock 
the soldiers from Managua, about a quarter of a mile or perhaps half 
a mile, came right on this place. We could see them from the woods, 
and the men began to pick up their patients and carry them out. They 
got them all hid in safe places in the brush, but the soldiers went through 
and destroyed everything they found, hammocks, etc., but did not 
catch anybody to kill. By night I had them back again, and worked 
on them to get them in shape once more, but the next morning the sol- 
diers were on us again, and they surprised us this time, as we did not 
expect the second invasion on the same day, and they caught four men 
and killed them. I had the men scattered around then, had them 
there hid, and told them I would have men carry out sweet potatoes 
to them at night and I would dress their wounds in the daytime 
and try to make the rounds. I started out the next day and got 
around to see nearly all my patients. The next day I started back, 
and I would find an empty hammock and a dead man macheted, and 
where I left the patient alive and wounds dressed, I would find a dead 
man, some from the effects of their wounds or some from typhoid fever — 
I had four cases of typhoid fever. I was about eight days making 
my rounds, with very little to eat myself, as I could not make a fire 
in the daytime. I had one patient, a man over at La Lorn a de Santa 
Barbar, of which I was very fond, and I went over to see him. I got 
over about dark and found him macheted. I hung up my hammock 
near where he was killed and told the men to bury him; and they 
started to bury him, and up came a little boy, and he said that if we 
were burying people his father and mother had been killed, too, and to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 425 

bury them; and he look us over and showed the father aud mother and 
another young - man, and I told the men to bury them, and the boy said 
there were others, and if we were burying them we might as well bury 
them, too, and I told the men to stop their burying then. I got up in 
the morning and found they bad killed my patient and twelve paciiicos, 
among them three women and two children — I would say babes — about 
this long [indicating], if the pieces were properly pat together. They 
had been held up by the legs this way, and split down with the maehete. 
They looked to be about 25 or 30 inches long, about a year old. I bad 
them all buried and took the little boy with us — took him away from 
there. The boy told us about it, but he could not make a clean 
explanation to me, as I could not speak Spanish, well enough to under- 
stand, and my men could not speak English. A day or two later my 
interpreter, who had been on a commission with General Castillo, came 
and I had the boy tell his story. He said Pizarao's men had seen the 
smoke from their fire and gone in to investigate, and had come upon 
the wounded man who was alone, and they told the wounded man they 
were going to take him to town. Tbey rolled the hammock up and 
were going to make him go to town by using a crutch, and seemed 
kindly disposed — seemed to want to take the man to town by killing 
him. About the time they were ready to start, up came the paciiicos 
with these two men — and the two men had a cup of coffee they had 
been to make for the wounded man — and the man in command stepped 
up to take the coffee which they had brought, but they handed it past 
him to the patient, and as they did that he threw out his sword and 
killed the patient; aud by this time the soldiers had killed the two 
men aud then they killed the others. 

Q. Was this work done by guerrillas or regular Spanish troops? — A. 
By a detachment from Pizarao's regiment. Pizarao's cavalry is the 
regiment Spain expected to crush the revolution. 

Q. An old organization? — A. Yes, sir; and the best regiment on the 
island in every respect. 

Q. Have you seen prisoners taken by the troops of the officers with 
whose command you have been serving — Spanish prisoners? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. Tell what treatment they received at the hands of the Cubans? — 
A. All the Spanish prisoners I saw with the exception of two were 
wounded men, and they were turned over to me and received the same 
treatment the Cubans did. 

Q. You speak of two who were exceptions; what was done with 
them? — A. They enlisted in the Cuban army and made brave fighters, 
but before I left were both disabled for life, wounded. They w 7 ere also 
from Pizarao's regiment. 

Q. Has there been much desertion from the Spanish army to the 
Cuban forces? — A. Yes, sir; and always propositions to desert, which 
the Cubans reject, as these men do not make good fighters ordinarily. 
They must know something of the man, about his record and the regi- 
ment to which he belongs, before they will take him. 

Q. When deserters come in not diposed to take arms on the Cuban 
side, what becomes of them? — A. If they bring arms with them, they 
are allowed to remain; their arms given to the soldiers. If without 
arms, they are sent back to town. 

Q. Is there any considerable number of Cubans in the Province of 
Havana, where you have been chiefly, that are ready to take up arms 
in behalf of Cuba — in behalf of the Pepublic — when they can get the 
proper ecpuipment, guns, etc.? — A. I would say I know personally that 



426 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

it is so. In my visits around there, I found that there were concen- 
trated round about the hospitals about 1,200 or 1,400 men who had 
promised to take arms when they are furnished with them, and 
expressed a willingness to do so; but whether or not they would, must 
be decided when the arms come. 

Q. Are the Cubans attempting to raise any crops in the province of 
Havana 1 ? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Where do they get their supplies from 1 ? — A. From the crops 
already planted. They have never been out of provisions, yuccas, yams, 
etc. 

Q. They are not cultivating now? — A. There is too much cultivated 
now. 

Q. You are getting supplies from the places where the houses were 
burnt and the crops left standing? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. An abundaut supply? — A. Yes, sir. 

O. How about the cattle; plenty of it? — A. Yes, sir; plenty of cattle; 
but at the present rate I think they will use up the cattle outside the 
lines in the next seven or eight months, when they will have to go 
inside the lines and drive out those there. 

Q. What do you call the "lines?" You mean in the towns where the 
troops are stationed, or is there a dividing line? — A. We call the line 
of concentration around the towns the lines. 

Q. How are these men armed, the forces you have been operating 
with? — A. With Eemington rifles, machetes, revolvers, and some 
Mausers. 

Q. Mounted, usually? — A. Yes, sir; all the force I saw was mounted. 
There was a force of infantry in the province, where I never saw them. 

Q. Have you witnessed any operations of what is called, or is, the 
civil government in Cuba under the Eepublic? — A. No; with the ex- 
ception of the collection of (axes under the management of prefecturas. 

Q. By whom are the taxes collected? — A. The first of each month 
each regiment is ordered to place so many men in commission to collect 
taxes in his territory. That force is changed each month; they relieve 
the men the first day of each month. 

Q. Do they collect the taxes? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. From whom? — A. From the railroad companies, from the planta- 
tions still running, and from charging a tariff on everything that goes 
into the town. 

Q. They charge export duty? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They permit food to go into the towns if they will pay the 
tariff? — A. Yes, sir. If they have plenty of fruit in that province. 
In some places they are not allowed to accept a tariff on fruit, because 
the fruit is scarce in that territory. In others they can sell as much as 
they please. 

Q. Are they allowed to carry in poultry, etc.? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Just fruits and vegetables? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Tell us about the spirit of the soldiery down there on the Cuban 
side; whether coerced to tight, or whether they fight willingly? — A. The 
men who live in Cuba libre are men who fight for the country. They 
say they will fight until they die, or live always in Cuba libre; they 
do not propose to live under the Spanish Government. The Spaniards 
talk of autonomy, and the soldiers wonder what they mean. They say: 
"What do we want with autonomy? We have autonomy here; we live 
in Cuba libre. If the Spaniards want autonomy, they might auton- 
omize their own army." They read in the papers sometimes that there 
is talk of Spain selling Cuba to the Junta, or that the Junta wants to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 427 

buy the island from Spain. They are not men who want to surrender 
or pay a cent for their independence, and they protest that the Junta 
has do right to pay for independence. They say: "We have fought for 
independence and Spain must necessarily, sooner or later, leave the 
island. They are afraid to send their soldiers down to fight us; let 
them autonomize their own forces, but we will live in Cuba libre." 

Q. That is the spirit with which they meet these propositions'? — A. 
There is not a man in the army — fighting men — who wants to surren- 
der; there are some who are not soldiers and never will be soldiers in 
any army — presentados. 

By Mr. Clark: . 

Q. What do you call them? — A. Presentados, surrendered people. 
You can pick up a paper and see a list of surrendered men who have 
come into the Spanish forces and surrendered. They are people who 
came to America, ran away from Cuba to America, and came to the 
Junta and were a charge on the Junta, and to get them off their hands 
they sent them back to the insurgent lines. For the most part they 
were young men who lived in Havana; dudes, as we would call them 
here; some bachelors, with a diploma from a college. They would come 
back to Cuba with their diplomas and call themselves captains, majors, 
and colonels, and they would come up and represent themselves to the 
men who have been fighting in the field for two years, and they would 
say, "We come from the Junta, and you get us a horse and a negro and 
we want commands in the army," and the officers would say, "You get 
yourself a horse and a negro, if you want them, and get to fighting," 
and they would fight for a day or two, and then slip into the brush and 
wait their chance to come into the Spanish lines. There is anotber 
class of presentados called maja, who are' in the woods. They took to 
the woods when the orders of concentration came. They are supposed 
to be there to fight when arms are sent to them. When arms are fur- 
nished them, they are ordered to the force to fight. About 40 per cent 
of them sneak into the first town and surrender. They will not sur- 
render until they have a gun, but when they have a gun it is a sort of 
guaranty for them. That is another kind of presentados. 

Q. The men in the ranks — you have seen them in battle? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. Often? — A. Every day. 

Q. They were fighting every day"? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. You mean that the Cuban army in Havana Province is actively 
engaged in carrying on the war? — A. There was not a day, between 
daylight and dark, when I could not hear the guns going, or if I was 
out marching, going to my hospitals, that I could not see more or less 
fighting. 

Q. Ho they fight with courage and spirit? — A. I will have to explain 
something of the situation there. You know each man, each colonel of 
a regiment, is given a territory to keep, and he must keep that territory 
at all cost, at any expense stay in it and keep the Spanish soldiers out 
of it. The Spanish soldiers never operate unless in a column, about 
1,200 men, and most of the time a combination of other columns. For 
instance, there will be a column spread out from a town here and 
another town here, and a town here and another town here, all in sight 
of each other. Here, now, is the colonel's territory, an insurgent 
colonel, and he is supposed to keep that. In every one of those towns 
is a volunteer guard and guerillas, and every night they will camp the 
column of soldiers who have been operating in the hospitals in one of 
these towns. Every time when they decide to prosecute a vigorous 



428 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

campaign they will try to catch this colonel. If he has 400 men he 
will have thorn divided into squads, one here, another here, and another 
there, and so on, and they have it arranged that if a column comes out 
and starts a fight another column can come out quickly and capture 
the insurgents, and when these columns are operating the insurgents 
march around and try to avoid wasting any ammunition — they march 
around and try to evade the soldiers. They will chase them around 
for two or three days and then let up. Maybe another leader will 
adopt different tactics, and he will send out a column here and another 
there, and they will split up into columns of 300 or 100 men each. 
Every morning we know what they are going to do. We have commis- 
sions in the town, and every night they send out word from these 
different towns. If word comes that small groups are coming to catch 
us, for instance, when these small columns come in sight the colonel 
will move off, leaving a small guard to attack this column and another 
guard to attack this column, and another guard for another column, 
and we will chase them around until we get them into different places, 
and then the force will reconcentrate and give them the machete, and 
so we can, in two or three hours, catch the whole batch and machete 
them. 

Q. The first point is to break up the organization of the Spaniards 
by attacking in different directions"? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. When that is done, the Cubans reconcentrate and attack the small 
parties? — A. Yes, sir; it would be folly to stop and make a pitched 
battle; it would be suicide. 

Q. Does this general with whom you are serving have any artillery? — 
A. No, sir. 

Q. Nearly all mounted? — A. Alexander Rodriguez, chief of the prov- 
ince, had artillery. General Castillo was brigadier-general and com- 
manded the central and western divisions of the province. 

Q. Rodriguez had artillery"? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Were you with him at all? — A. I met him twice. 

Q. What was about the strength of Rodriguez's command alto- 
gether? — A. Rodriguez's command was the whole province. 

Q. And you have already stated that? — A. Yes, sir; he operates, 
himself, with a personal escort of a regiment, between 350 and 400 men. 

Q. The real point in the tactics of the Cubans was to avoid general 
engagements and harass the enemy when they could get to him? — A. 
Yes, sir; to right cavalry always, but infantry it is hard to fight with- 
out making a pitched battle. They fight cavalry always. 

Q. Wherever they meet it? — A. Yes, sir; but when the soldiers come 
out they are not very troublesome. For instance, they will come out of 
a town and march in sight of the insurgents and open fire. They are 
not in a distance to hurt and the insurgents do not care much, and they 
stay there. The Spaniards stand there half a day and shoot away and 
then go back to town. It is only occasionally they get troublesome. 

Q. When the Spaniards are out on these forays or strategic move- 
ments, do they carry any provision trains with them ? — A. No, sir; 
always go back to town to camp. 

Q. How is the Spanish army subsisting; do they have depots of 
provisions? — A. I don't know much about that; I am not able to say, 
as I was on the other side. I never saw them in the field with anything 
to eat. They always go to the nearest town at 5 o'clock to camp, and 
if they do not like their food they throw it away and send word to us 
to let them come out and fight, if they will feed them, and the insur- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 429 

gents tell tliem to go back and starve to death and then Spain will take 
them home. 

Q. How did you get away from there when you left to come here 1 ? — 
A. Through Havana. 

Q. In disguise, I suppose"? — A. No, sir; dressed like I am now; just 
the same. 

Q. Anybody arrest you, or attempt it? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Why did they not? They had opportunities, I suppose? — A. They 
thought I was dead, in the first place, and did not know me, anyway. 
They knew me at the palace, but I didn't go to the palace. 

Q. Had you contrived to leave the impression that you were dead? — 
A. No, sir; it was accidental that they thought I was dead. They had 
all my papers at the palace; have them yet, and reported so from the 
palace. Those who were on the inside got the news of my death from 
the palace and sent it to the States. A friend of mine knew I was not 
dead, but he was afraid to correct the impression, for fear it might 
injure me, and also him, 

Q. Have you ever been engaged in any military operations, except 
as a surgeon, with arms in your hands? — A. I always carried arms. 

Q. Have you ever engaged in battle? — A. Only when necessary to 
cut my way through. 

Q. Never been regarded as a soldier? — A. No, sir. 

Q. You were not a regularly enlisted man? — A. No, sir; a volunteer. 

Q. Volunteered as a surgeon? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. From your rank as a surgeon and the fact that you were only 
employed in that benevolent work, would the Spaniards have killed 
you if caught? — A. They sent me word to that effect; in fact, the same 
colonel that took my clothes and papers to the palace and reported me 
dead had sent word that I was a rebel, and his policy was to kill all 
rebels, and if I ever fell into his hands he would kill me, and for me 
not to attempt to bribe him with a cup of chocolate. I had sent him 
a cup of chocolate, of which I had some, into the town by a pacifico 
woman. 

Q. How did you get that chocolate? — A. Bought it. 

Q. Ho they raise anything of the kind in the island? — A. No, sir; 
I bought it in the town. 

Q. Is it the product of the cocoa bean? — A. I do not knowj in fact, 
I never paid much attention to chocolate or cared for it until I went 
there. 

Q. Does coffee grow there? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Abundantly? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Cultivated or wild?— A. Wild. 

Q. Is it a good berry for food? — A. Very good. It is about all used 
up when I got there. I never saw any of it growing, but I stopped 
one night at a prefectura and the men were all cleaning coffee, and 
that night I had some, and they gave me 2 or 3 pounds of it, and I 
carried it in my pocket and used it. 

Q. The Cuban army is all supplied from the country? — A. They do 
not have much coffee, and what they usually have is bad. 

Q. The coffee is grown in the country? — A. No, sir; I do not think 
it is. There would be no necessity to buy it if grown in the country. 

Q. Are there any districts where the coffee grows wild, or are there 
coffee plantations? — A. There are coffee plantations in the other parts 
of the island — in the other provinces, but not in Havana. 

Q. Do you get your supply from the other parts of the island, or from 
Havana, or from the towns? — A. We buy it in the towns. The chiefs 
only have coffee; it is very seldom soldiers have any. 



430 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. In Havana province! — A. Yes, sir. Sometimes the friends will 
send some out from the town. 

Q. It is a sugar district? — A. Yes, sir; the finest plantations, I 
reckon, on the island. 

Q. Is the cane destroyed? — A. The Spaniards destroyed a great deal 
of cane, but they do not know how to destroy cane, and consequently 
it grows up again. You can get plenty of cane to eat, if you want to 
cut it down. 

Q. Do they give it to their horses? — A. Horses will eat it, but I don't 
think it is very good for a horse. 

Q. Is forage abundant to support the horses of the Cubans? — A. 
Oh, yes. 

Q. What kind? — A. We have had plenty of corn until now, and I 
think the corn will last, maybe, the rest of this month, until the rainy 
season comes; after a rainy season the corn will grow up again in two 
or three months, and until then they will eat the grass. 

Q. There is plenty of that? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. A good grass country? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do they make hay of it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is it very abundant? — A. Yes, sir; and as good as it is here; it 
will grow as high as on the prairie; the grass will grow there in the 
trails or anywhere else. 

Q. Are these engagements you have been speaking about, and which 
you saw the troops at war with each other, in the vicinity of towns and 
villages? — A. Yes, sir; very hard to be away from the vicinities of 
towns and villages in Havana Province; always in sight of a town. 

Q. Always? — A. Yes, sir; I could see a town any time I was in the 
war by walking to any little elevation, and it was never more than a 
mile to some town. 

Q. Take the great body of the Cuban people of all classes — I mean, 
now, those in the country you have visited and see yourself — are they 
in favor of fighting for their liberty, or are they opposed to it or indif- 
ferent to it? — A. In favor of fighting for it. 

Q. Is that a determined spirit, as you understand it — a determined 
and well settled purpose on their part? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. You spoke about the collection of taxes, and said something, also, 
about the civil government. In what other respect besides the codec- ' 
tion of taxes does the civil government operate among the Cuban insur- 
gents? — A. The Cuban government really has no operation except in 
the prefecturas, and the captain of the prefecturas is the chief. The 
laws of the civil government are executed there, but there is no law 
necessary. The military government is all that is necessary, as there 
are no families living there, no farms in operation; everything must be 
under military command. But the taxes are turned in to the civil gov- 
ernor of the province. 

Q. Are they judicial officers or merely executive officers? — A. Both. 

Q. Are there any exclusively judicial offices? — A. Xo, sir. 

Q. You speak of the taxes? — A. That goes to the civil government — 
that is, what is not paid to the soldiers. On the 1st day of May and 
the 1st day of June each soldier got a gold centime. 

Q. How much is that? — A. $5.30. 

Q. Paid the 1st of June and the 1st of May? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Paid for wages? — A. No, sir; it was given to them; they are not 
fighting for wages. 

Q. That was a present? — A. Yes, sir; it was given them to buy 
whatever they wanted — cigarettes, hat, pair of shoes, or anything they 
wanted. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 431 

Q. Are rations served to them? — A. No, sir; each man provides his 
own rations. They eat together in messes, and one man provides 
beef, and another salt, and another sweet potatoes; each whatever 
they have. 

Q. They make up a fund and buy it? — A. They don't have to buy 
it; they dig it up. 

Q. How about the beef! — A. When they kill a beef, the chief stands 
there and the beef is cut up and divided among them, and he superin- 
tends the division of the beef. 

Q. Isn't that a ration ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. The Cuban government really supplies everything except what is 
dug up by the messes? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is the system of communication between the different parts 
of the island? — A. What they call a commission. One chief wants to 
communicate with another, and he gives a man an escort and pats him 
in commission, and sends him to the other. 

Q. Is there any postal system in Havana Province? — A. The com- 
mission when he goes carries letters, but they don't care much about 
writing. 

Q. Suppose he wants those letters taken to a far-distant point, to the 
eastern or western part of the island, is there any postal system for 
that? — A. There is always a commission between the east and the west. 

Q. Eeally a mail service? — A. The reports from the subchiefs to the 
chiefs and the geueral chief, and the return orders from the general to 
the chiefs and the subchiefs are sent in that way. 

Q. You spoke of being in Pinar del Eio — how far did you penetrate in 
that province? — A. I do not know how far it was, because it is hard to 
estimate distances, traveling the way we did. We could not go in 
direct lines, as we had to avoid the town. At the time we were on 
commission and rode three days into Pinar del Eio, but it is hard to 
say how far we went. 

Q. Were you executing commission then? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What command was with you? — A. General Castillo's. 

Q. The whole army? — A. No, sir. Castillo went over after some 
arms to arm some other people in Havana. 

Q. Did he get them? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Bring them back? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did he cross the trocha? — A. Yes, sir; near Mariel. 

Q. Near where ? — A. Mariel. That trocha is practically abandoned 
now. 

Q. The Mariel trocha ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That is the western trocha ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They still keep up the other trocha ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is that called ? — A. The Jucaro-Maron trocha. 

Q. Did you meet any Spanish troops on your way over or back ? — A. 
We went three times before we could cross the trocha and reach the 
arms. 

Q. Driven back by the Spanish ? — A. Yes, sir ; but we finally went 
across. 

Q. And got successfully back with the arms and ammunition ? — A. 
Yes, sir. On that trip we never encountered a Spanish soldier ; had no 
trouble whatever. 

Q. How did you transport them ? — A. Gave each man so many guns, 
and gave each man so much ammunition to carry. 

Q. Each man took so many guns and so much ammunition ? — A. 
Yes, sir. 



432 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Were you at any landing of an expedition ! — A. I never was at a 
landing, or saw an expedition. 

Q. What is the general health of the Cuban population, living in 
Cuba Libre, as you call it"? — A. Good. 

Q. What is the general health of the Cuban army? — A. Good. 

Q. Have any epidemics visited that army since you have been there ! — 
A. No, sir; the only disease we have is typhoid fever. They have had 
some occasionally, about four cases, and they all died — all that I had. 
All the other cases 1 have had since I have been with them have been 
malaria. I diagnosed these four as typhoid fever, but they said they 
never had typhoid fever in Cuba, but that it was some kind of 

Q. Are these Cubans in the army strong, healthy fellows, or thin and 
weak?— A. They are pretty husky fellows. The Cubans are not a large 
race. There are no such men as Mr, Decker, but they are strong and 
healthy. 

Q. How do they compare with the Spanish soldiers'? — A. The men in 
the Spanish army are good, strong fellows. But a man is very scarce 
in the Spanish army; it is mostly composed of boys. 

Q. How do you account for that? — A. They have had to send so 
many soldiers to the island that they did not have enough men. 

Q. Have you had any chance of personal observation as to the rav- 
ages of disease among the Spanish army? — A. Yes, sir; some. 

Q. What have you to say about that? — A. Disease is the greatest 
enemy the Spanish army has, and they die very rapidly — very fast. For 
instance, crossing the trocha to come to Havana — the Havana trocha — 
at night, as soon as I crossed I stopped with some pacificos camped 
there, and they told me that three or four Spaniards were dying each 
day in those forts in that neighborhood, and when I got into town I 
found it was true. I was two or three days hiding in Havana, waiting 
for a chance to come away from there through America, and I spent 
that time in the outskirts of the city, where the hospitals are located, 
and in the low coffee houses where the Spanish soldiers are, and, we 
might say, put in my time visiting the Spanish soldiers, talking about 
the war, their condition, etc., buying them cigarettes and fruit — those 
who did not have any money — helping them out a little. 

Q. What American newspaper correspondents were in the army 
where you were operating? — A. None. 

Q. How many hospitals — regular hospitals — did you have under your 
charge? — A. Some days they would amount to a hundred, and the 
next day maybe only live or six. I had six regularly named hospitals 
that I tried to keep up all the time in spite of the soldiers, and where, 
if the soldiers came, I would offer armed resistance, and hold them off 
until I could get my men out. 

Q. When the soldiers came out to attack, all you could do was to 
make resistance until such time as you could carry your sick and 
wounded away?— A. Well, the first resistance i made I stood off a 
column all day long with four men, and that night got the men out. 

Q. Were you in the thick woods? — A. Very thick. 

Q. They were afraid — afraid to approach in the woods? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. I suppose the advance of an attacking party or column through 
those thick woods would be very much embarrassed by the surround- 
ings- — the trees, vines, brush, and all that? — A, Yes, sir; I at one time 
got out of the woods before the soldiers got in, and sat on a hill 300 or 400 
yards away and watched them go into the woods. The chief stopped 
about 300 yards from where they entered the brush, and the infantry 
marched up and all the officers stood back, and the sergeant or lieu- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 433 

tenant or small officers ordered the men in. The men marched up to 
the brush and then they would hesitate, and these officers would draw 
their canes — they nearly all carry canes — or some of them machetes, 
and they would whip them in. They would grab a man by the arm 
and strike him with a cane and drag aud push him in. By the time a 
man got a little ways in he would cry "Viva Espagnol," and then the 
others would follow, aud they would all rush in and set the houses afire, 
and yell and raise the mischief generally, and those on the outside 
would run up and try to set the brush afire, try to set the whole army 
afire, as it looked to me. If it had been dry brush, like American under- 
growth, they would have burnt the entire army up. 

Q. By brush, do you mean trees and bushes that have been cut 
down? — A. No, sir; it is short growth that has not been cut down. 
The ground is not fit for cultivation, it is rocky, and the bushes grow 
right out of the rocks, and we have to pick out the trail very carefully. 
They are sharp and jagged rocks that stick up there; you can not walk 
across them, you have to pick your way, and it makes a very narrow 
trail to get in. 

Q. Has General Castillo kept practically the same ground all the time 
you have been with him? — A. Yes, sir; practically the same ground 
since he first went in there since the invasion. 

Q. He really has not been driven out? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Took his position and stayed there? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. He has shifted his position? — A. He would avoid a fight with a 
superior force. General Castillo himself is marching his force from 
one position to another, always looking for a fight. He does not rest 
himself. Every territory, you might say the whole territory, is occu- 
pied by a force that has occupied it since the invasion, and their busi- 
ness is to stay there. 

Q. They are never driven out? — A. No, sir; General Castillo and 
Alex. Eodriguez have a large territory ; General Castillo has the west- 
ern part of the province, operating all through it, and at the same time 
there are smaller forces operating in different parts of the province, 
who stay each in its own territory. 

Q. If I understand you correctly, the Cuban generals who have been 
operating in the province of Havana have been operating there since 
the insurrection broke out? — A. Since the invasion. 

Q. Since Gomez invaded the west from the east? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And have not been driven out? — A. Yes, sir; the army has grown 
continually and the territories spread daily. 

Q. So far as military operations are concerned, they are in the occu- 
pation of the country and have been so ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. I suppose many efforts have been made to drive them out? — A. 
They are fighting every day. 

Q. There is constant pressure to overcome and drive them out? — A. 
Yes, sir; the guerrillas and volunteers made the hardest fight, but they 
have been j>ractically killed out and whipped, and they are afraid to 
fight any more. 

Q. Who? — A. The guerrillas. The last guerrillas were those of 
Salug. There were 36 of them, and they killed the whole 36 about a 
week ago. 
. Q. The guerrillas are very severe? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Very severe on the Cubans; cruel? — A Yes, sir. 

Q. You say they are practically driven out of the province? — A. Not 
driven out, but afraid to operate there; afraid to go out without the 
escort of a column of soldiers. 
2§ 



434 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Got enough of it? — A. Yes, sir; they have been whipped, and 
that gives the insurgents more territory, because these guerrillas were 
stationed in the towns, and were supposed to protect the pacificated 
zone and to carry the pacificos out to get food in the country. 

Q. The important question I wish to ask you, based upon your 
observation since you have been in Cuba and associated with these 
fighting forces, is whether the Cubans Lave gained ground or lost 
ground as to strength and equipment and fighting ability generally 
since you have been there? — A. I would say they have gained ground 
and gained strength and gained knowledge in war. 

Q. You intend to return to them ? — A. Yes, sir, 

Q. In the same capacity you are now? — A. In the same capacity. 

Q. As a surgeon? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you have many assistants, surgeons? — A. No, sir; none. 

Q. Had none at all, had to perform the work yourself? — A. Yes, sir; 
I had practicantes, medical students. 

Q. Medical students? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They were your only assistants? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. No regular practitioner associated with you in your work? — A. 
No, sir. 

Q. With whom did you leave the hospitals when you came away? — 
A. With the practicantes. Unless I can get supplies, surgical sup- 
plies, the practicantes can do as well as I could. 

Q. That is what you came to this country for? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. To get surgical supplies? — A. Yes, sir; to try to make arrange- 
ments for regular supplies for the hospitals. 

Q. I believe you mention Spanish soldiers have been in your charge ? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Spanish soldiers? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you treat them with equal care as the Cubans? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. You felt bound by professional courtesy? — A. Yes, sir. j 1 j R 8 

Q. Is there any order of any Cuban general to do contrary to that? — 
A. No, sir; that is the order to the army in the military regulation, and 
each chief is provided with a copy, that each Spanish soldier shall be 
returned to the towns or held as prisoners; no soldiers killed except 
when captured as spies. 

Q. Have the Spanish any permanent camps outside the towns? — A. 
None that I ever saw or knew of. 

Q. Never heard of any? — A. No, sir. 

Q. When you speak of a town you mean a town garrisoned by 
Spanish troops? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Fortified? — A. In every little town there was a string of forts. 

Q. W T hat kind of forts; any strength? — A. Yes, sir; strong enough 
o resist the arms the Cubans have. 

Q. Small arms? — A. Yes, sir. I do not think they could resist artil- 
lery — any heavy artillery — or even 4 or 5 pounders. 

Q. What are they made of? — A. Stone. 

Q. Is there plenty of stone? — A. Yes, sir; the whole island, you 
might say, is a great big rock. 

Q. The whole island? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. From what place did General Castillo get his supply of salt? — A. 
Any town he would happen to be near he would send in for it. 

Q. In order to get salt he would have to capture a town; fight for 
it? — A. No, sir; he would give a man a centen and tell him to go in 
and get salt. He would buy it. 

Q. He kept up atratic with the towns? — A. Yes, sir. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 435 

Q. How could be manage that where there was a concentration of 
pacificos and Spanish garrison? — A. The paciticos came out after sweet 
potatoes — each man can bring something in his sack (cigarettes, a hat, 
blankets) which do not take up much space. I bought a big blanket, 
a hat, pair of shoes, and suit of clothes, all brought in one cargo — one 
man brought it. He brought that right past the fort and sentries; 
the next day brought out three Mausers. 

Q. He had no permit to do it? — A. No, sir. 

Q. He smuggled it out; he would have lost his life if caught at it? — 
A. Yes, sir. They usually make four or five trips, and then the next 
trip they will be caught and shot. 

Q. They catch up with them finally, and then they are done for? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. Is there any other matter you wish to state that you think would 
be of importance? — A. I do not know of anything else; it seems to me 
we have gone over about the whole ground. 

After examining and correcting my deposition as above, I sign the 
same under oath. 

Foster R. Winn, M. D. 
Washington, D. 0., June 28, 1897. 



436 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



STATEMENT OF DR. H. W. DANFORTH. 

In the absence of Senator Morgan, Mr. Lodge acted as a member of 
the subcommittee. 
Mr. Danforth was sworn by Senator Clark. 

By Mr. Clark : 

Q. What is your name, profession or occupation, and present place 
of residence? — A. H. W. Danforth; physician and surgeon; Milwau- 
kee, Wis. 

Q. You may state whether or not you have been engaged in profes- 
sional work recently on the Island of Cuba; and if so, in what capacity 
and with whom? — A. I have been engaged in Cuba as a physician to 
the President of Cuba, Salvador Cisneros. 

Q. How long have you been in that position? — A. One year. 

Q. During that time have you been near by the person of the Presi- 
dent?— A. All the time. 

Q. ISTow, the committee is very anxious to learn a particular thing 
that probably comes within your knowledge, and that is, as definitely 
as possible, as to the civil government carried on by the Cuban insur- 
gents, so called. We would be glad if you will give, at large and in 
detail, whatever knowledge you' may have. 

By Mr. Lodge : 

Q. Let me ask, before that question is answered : President Cisneros 
is the head of the civil government? — A. He is, sir. 

Q. You have not been attached to the army in a military capacity? — 
A. I have not. I will now answer the first question. The civil govern- 
ment, as far as my observation extends, has power over the country. 
They have that power through the governors of the various States who 
are appointed by the President or elected by the people. They also 
have power through the prefects and through the subprefects appointed 
by the President or by the Secretary of the Interior, Dr. Canasarius. 
Their duty, of course, is — the subprefects' duty is — to attend the mails, 
see that they are diligently forwarded, and, in so far as possible, con- 
tribute to the relief of the military authorities that chance to be in their 
neighborhood, by giving them rations and treating them in that way. 
They are also delegated or appointed to power by the President to 
celebrate all marriages which may occur among the insurgents. They 
have the power from the cabinet of celebrating those marriages. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 437 

By Mr. Lodge : 

Q. How is this civil government organized"? — A. It is organized by — 
pardon me, I do not understand. 

Q. I mean when was it organized? — A. It was organized in — well, I 
do not know exactly when it was organized; I can tell when the Presi- 
dent was elected, if that will do. It was two years ago the 22d of 
February; that is, he was installed in office two years ago the 22d of 
February. 

Q. Do you understand that a popular election was held? — A. An 
election of the army only. Of course, it is simply here, gentlemen — the 
island is, at the present time, in revolution, and a great many people 
have gone to the towns — a great many of the pacificos — and the result 
is that it is almost an impossibility for them to secure a free and inde- 
pendent — I can not exactly express it. 

Q. It is impossible to get a full vote"? — A. That is it. 

Q. This government adopted a constitution, which, of course, has 
been published. Was there a convention held of representative dele- 
gates? — A. Oh, yes. 

Q. And a civil government was organized? — A. Yes, sir. There 
were — I have forgotten the number of delegates, although I have seen 
it; I have read of the number that were present; but there were a 
number of delegates chosen from the army from the various Provinces 
of Cuba, and those delegates met at Jimagua, or some such named 
place, and elected the President and Vice-President, and his secretaries. 
The secretaries were all elected in place of being appointed, as in this 
country. 

Q. Does that civil government, organized in this way — does it operate 
and have power? — A. Indeed it does so, sir. 

Q. The military forces hold their commissions from it? — A. They 
hold their commissions from the civil government. 

Q. What has been the capital— what has been the seat of govern- 
ment? — A. They have had no capital until about the 1st of February 
of this year, and then they put up a number of houses at Aguira, about 
3 leagues to west of the city of Wymero, in Puerto Principe, and they 
established that as the seat of government. 

Q. Were they not at Cubitos! — A. No, sir. 

Q. Have they ever been driven out of their seat of government by 
the Spaniards? — A. Not up to the time I left; but I will tell you in 
candor that all the Spaniards have to do, if they want to, is to march 
100 men dowu there and drive the Cubans out. I was there on the 
29th of April and they had but 8 men in the capital. The President 
was in one place, the Vice-President here, and the secretaries there, 
and so on; they were distributed according to the business relations 
they had, and were seeing, too, about the country. 

Q. They have never been disturbed by the enemy? — A. No, sir. 

Q. They have beeu able to carry on all the functions of civil govern- 
ment? — A. They have. 

Q. You understand why I asked these questions? — A. No, sir. 

Q. The charge is made here that the Cuban government is purely 
military; that Gomez is all there is to it. — A. That is all nonsense. 
Gomez and Garcia and Maceo were under the entire control of the 
government. 

Q. Never questioned it? — A. Never so much as raised the question 
as to the source of their power. 

Q. President Cisneros has taken an active part in carrying on the 
government? — A. Of course he has; he is with the government all the 
time. 



438 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Over how large a part of Cuba is that government recognized? — 
A. All over Cuba, except in the towns, and there the Spanish have 
authority and control. 

Q. What do the Spanish hold control of ?— A. The towns and where 
they are camped. 

Q. Only where they have garrisons or where they encamp? — A. Yes, 
sir; the balance of the island is in the hands of the Cubans. 

Q. All the rest? — A. Yes, sir; save where the Spaniards are encamped. 

Q. The insurgents move freely all through the country? — A. I have 
gone from Moron down to Banos, a distance of about two weeks' ride, 
and hard riding, too, on horseback, entirely alone except for my assist- 
ant, and never experienced the slightest trouble. 

Q. Through all these country districts the power of the civil govern- 
ment of President Cisneros is recognized? — A. Yes, sir; you will find 
that the President has prefects established at about every 3 to6 leagues 
all over the island, from east to west and from north to south; which- 
ever way you go prefects are established every 3 to 6 leagues. At their 
houses all officers or travelers on commissions to or from the govern- 
ment are expected to stop if they can. Those prefects are bouud by 
law to furnish those men with care, protection, comfort, and shelter, 
and of course they supply them with food and other things in propor- 
tion as they can. 

Q. They carry on the usual functions of civil government, such as 
you alluded to, solemnizing marriages, etc.? — A. Certainly, except as it 
may be in this direction. We will say a murder has been committed. 
They have no judges in Cuba at all, though I think they are just as fair 
there as the Spaniards. The Spaniards have plenty of judges, but 
they are not as fair as they might be. The Cubans have no judges, 
but the prefect will arrest the man, examine him and send him to the 
nearest general in command of the forces, and he will treat him as he 
deserves; if innocent, free him; if guilty, doubtless shoot him. 

Q. Has there been more than one election of delegates in the 
island ! — A. More than one election of delegates ? 

Q. Has there been more than one? I had heard that there was more 
than one convention. — A. I do not know that there had been up to the 
time I left the island, which was on the 29th of April. Up to that 
time there had not been, although very shortly the election was to be 
held, and the delegates were to assemble at the capital for this coming 
election. The president's term of office expires September 22, 1 think. 

Q. And they intend to hold another election, and choose delegates 
again? — A. They intend to hold another election during the summer, 
and have the new officer, whoever it be — Cisneros or any other — ready 
to be installed on the 22d of September, when the President's term is 
out. That is the fact with reference to the Vice-President, and the 
fact with reference to all the secretaries of his cabinet — they are all to 
be elected, and will take their offices accordingly. 

Q. And you say these delegates were chosen largely by the insur- 
gents in arms? I suppose others, who were not in arms, had the right 
to vote if they wished ? — A. Certainly; all the Cubans in the country 
districts — all not under the control of the Spanish in the islands — have 
the entire right to vote. 

Q. And are not prevented? — A. And are not prevented. On the con- 
trary, the prefects are speaking, or were speaking when I was there, to 
the inhabitants all through their various districts, telling them the 
election was about to occur soon and they wanted to be there to vote. 
I did not know at the time, and do not know now, exactly when the elec- 
tion is to occur, but I have heard the prefects stating to the various 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 439 

people that an election was to be held and that they (the people) wanted 
to be there and cast their votes for whom they wauted to have serve 
them. 

By Mr. Clark : 

Q. I would like to make some inquiry as to the postal service of the 
island, if you know about it. — A. I know a little. 

Q. Is there any regular postal service? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. In what manner is it conducted? — A. On this plan: They have 
the prefects of these districts, and they act as distributing officers in 
the postal service, I believe. 

Q. They are from 3 to 6 leagues apart f — A. Yes, sir. All the people 
in their districts are coming and going to and from their place. They 
usually visit the prefects at least once every week or two to get mail 
and see if there are any orders for provisions or to get provisions. 
They are usually coming and going there every week or two. 

Q. About how is the mail transported? — A. On horseback entirely. 

Q. Is that a regular service? — A. There is no regular service in Cuba. 

Q. How frequent or general is it, for instance? — A. I do not exactly 
get the question. 

Q. Suppose I am living at one station, and I want to forward a letter 
100 miles to the west, to another station? — A. It will go within twenty- 
four hours. 

Q. What means of communication — you say the army is entirely sub- 
ject to the civil government — what means has the president of com- 
munication with Gomez or Garcia or other divisions of the army? Is 
that done through the regular mail service? — A. It is done by special 
couriers and through the regular mail service. 

Q. I would like to know how frequently, whether generally or only 
upon special occasions, the military authorities communicate with the 
civil, and receive orders from them? — A. There you have me. I am 
sorry to say I do not know, not having been thrown into such very 
intimate and close relations. 

Q. You do not know whether regular reports are made to the civil 
government from the military? — A. I do not. 

Q. You speak of various secretaries. What others are there besides 
the secretary of the interior? — A. There are those of foreign relations, 
Mr. Portuando, who is a very, very pleasant man ; the secretary of the 
interior, Dr. Canasious; and the secretary of the treasury, Mr. Pina. I 
believe that to be all, and the vice-president, General Masso. 

Q. These various secretaries or heads of the departments; are they 
regularly and constantly engaged in the duties of their various offices, 
or merely figureheads for the purpose of making up a government? — 
A. They and their secretaries are regularly and constantly engaged in 
attending to the duties of their offices. I have seen — I will not say 
how many times, because I do not know, but it is a great many times, 
when we have pitched camp, usually about 1 o'clock in the afternoon, 
and about half past 2, after we have finished breakfast — I have seen 
the secretaries busy dictating to their secretaries, and their secretaries 
busy in writing. 

Q. If you have had opportunity to judge, I would like to know as to 
the confidence which this civil government has in the ultimate success 
of the independence of Cuba? — A. If I have had the opportunity to 
judge? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. I will tell you this. The civil government of Cuba 



440 A.FFAIKS IN (Mii?A. 

will — all, each, and every one of them — go down to destruction unless 
their independence is attained. 

Q. And still thatdoesnot A. 1 have heard the president of Cuba 

make that same remark. 

Q. We very often And men who are willing to die for the cause they 
maintain, and yet who have not so much confidence in the success of 
their cause as in the certainty of their own death. What l want to 
get at is their confidence whether Cuban freedom will be achieved. — 

A. It is my opinion that it LS the opinion of every one in the insurgent 

ranks that liberty will eventually be obtained. 

Q. I will ask yon, from your experience and your intimate association 
with public affairs there, what would be your judgment 1 ? — A. My 
judgment is the same. 1 will give yon my reasons, and then you can 
judge for yourself as well as I can. At the last war Spain had on the 
island 1350,000 soldiers. There were but two provinces in insurrection, 
Orieut and Oamaguey, or Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba. 
The revolutionists had from 6,000 to 7,ooo armed men, and yet the 
revolutionists prolonged the struggle for ten long years before Spain 
could subdue them. This year every section of the island is in insur- 
rection. Spain has but 300,000 men, bid. 50,000 more than I, hey had 
before, and the revolutionists have about 30,000 to 35,000 well-armed 

men, and if is my opinion that Cuba will eventually win her freedom, 
I do not care whether Spain is willing or not. 

By Mr. LODGE: 

Q. You say Spain has 300,000 men. Thai is the whole body of men 
Spain has been able to send to the island you do not mean she has 
300,000 effectives there now? — A. Certainly. She had on the 1st of 
January 153,000 regular soldiers from Spain. 

Q. They have sent out more than that 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; but I am not 
counting anything 

Q. By and by I would like your estimate of Spanish losses. — A. The 
guerrillas number between 50,000 and 60,000 — the Spanish guerrillas. 
They are Cubans, or should be Cubans in reality, who have adopted 

t he cause of Spain. 

Q. You mean the voluntaries? — A. Yes, sir; then they have the 
guarda civil and they have all the firemen in the island, and they have 
armed (hem all and are using them as soldiers. 

Q. The guarda civil, were they brought from Spain or is if a native 
body? — A. A native body of men, but under the ruling of the power 
of Spain. All in all, J think the number is fully 300,000 men. The 
Cubans, on the contrary, have but 30,000 to 35,000 well armed men, 
about 1 to every 10. Is it anything very wonderful, therefore, that 
you do not hear of some immense battle? 1 do not think it to be so at 
all. I think the Cubans are conducting the campaign as they should. 

(),. Spain is said, and I am told all authorities seem to agree, she is 
said to have sent out more than 150,000 men? — A. She has. 

Q. Nave not her losses from disease and these various little engage- 
ments been very severe? — A. \ r ery; it is simply — why, in this morn- 
ing's paper 1 was noting- the return of some steamship to Spain from 
Havana, and was noting that it stated that the Spanish had shipped 
some 7!).'> invalided soldiers on that ship. Every ship that leaves 
Havana carries, as a rule, from L'OO to 500 men, so you can imagine 
Spain must lose pretty heavily. 

Q, Only the invalided and wounded; the dead are buried there? — A. 
The dead are always buried there, and there are a great many who 



A.FFAIRS IN (MlltA. 



A4\ 



die, especially of fevers. The Spanish troops are young, nothing but 
hoys iii many instances, and being unacclimated and unlit practically 
for any experience in the rough warfare of Cuba, the climate goes very 
hard with them. 

By Mr. CLARK : 

Q, Right in that connection I would like to ash as to the physique 
and health of the Cubans actively engaged under arms, their means 
of subsistence, and how well they are cared ('or.- a. The Oubaus are, 
in every way in good health, save for an occasional fever. Sou have 
the yellow fever and you have the malarial lover, which I had an expo 
rience with last December, anything Kui. plousunt where no quinine 
was to be obtained yon can Imagine. They are good physique; a 
trifle lighter than I am. I suppose l was as light as they in April or 
May of this year, wheu I was there. With reference to their food, they 
bave (he best that can be obtained. 

Q. When you say "the best that can be obtained," do you mean 
under the circumstances ? — -A. Yes, sir. 

(.),. Thatiswhatl want to find out, how well they are subsisted, a. in 
Oamaguey, where I was, they have boniato, or sweet potatoes. Some 
times i. hey will have yucca, sometimes plantains, sometimes conchan 
chilla, a mixture of honey and hot water. Sometimes they will have 
coffee, sometimes they will not have anything except, perhaps, meat. 

Q. I low about I heir supply of meat? a. it is ample. 

Q. Where is that obtained? A. Everywhere, anywhere. By the 
laws of the Cubans, l»y the law of the land, it is a fact that the Cuban 
rulers declared, when this war first stinted, that all horses and all 
cattle in the island, wherever found, were to be regarded as public 
property. The result is you can (iiul catl le everyw here in Oamaguey. 

I <lo not believe I have ever ridden 3 miles without seeing more Or less 

cattle. 

By Mr. Lodge: 

Q. Do they take good care of them? A. Yes, sir. 

(}. So that they have an indefinite supply?' A. Yes, sir. Their horses 
are kept in bortraros, very large spaces, from hull* a league long to a 
quarter of a league in width. 

By Mr. Clark : 
Q. Corrals, or pastures? — A. Pastures, protected by barbed-wire 
fences, and horses are kept grazing within. Anyone passing there 

with his horse very mueh fatigued, with the permission of the man in 

charge, can change him tor another, it is a very good idea. 

Q, As to the food question, what is your opinion as to the amount 
necessary to sustain the war?— a. i am a specimen of it. I bave been 
there ;i year and a quarter and I have done, very well, indeed, and I 
have lived on meat tor almost live months, and nothing but meat, and 
I believe that my looks are reasonably good lor a meat diet. 

By Mr. LODG-B: 
(f. What would be your judgment as to the general feeling of the 
great mass of the native Cubans?— A, Animosity to the Spaniards and 

;i desire to he free. 

Q, The insurgent government and army represent the wishes of the 
great body <>f the people? — A. They do, I believe. 

(},. winif do you think would he the effect of any action on the part 
of this country? — A. is that to be taken 



442 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Suppose this country should intervene! — A. I can not but think 
it would terminate the war. 

Q. Is it your impression that the Spanish campaign have got there 
weaker and weaker; that they are in process of exhaustion ; that money 
is more difficult to obtain"? — A. My idea is that the money is growing 
more and more scarce and harder for the Spanish to get hold of, but, with 
reference to their campaigns, they are just as well conducted as ever. 

Q. Were they ever well conducted ? — A. That is the point. Of course 
it is susceptible of two answers, yes or no. 

Q. Have they won any very serious victories there? — A. No, sir. I 
desire while I am about it — I was looking over some papers last even- 
ing — I desire to most positively and emphatically deny the statements 
of Mr. Olney or President Cleveland, that the government is a military 
usurpation. I deny that most emphatically. I claim that there is a 
civil government and that that government is exercising its functions, 
and is in force to-day just as much as the civil government in the United 
States. I just happened to think of that in the course of your remarks. 
You hit on something that reminded me of it. 

Q. Have they any workshops? — A. Yes, sir; and a great many of 
them. They are irregularly situated, but, for instance, they will kill a 
cow or kill a dozen cattle at this encampment to-night at 7 o'clock. The 
hides are taken off and hung on the branches of a near by tree, and at 
8 o'clock in the morning they are taken to the prefect, and he will send 
them by a messenger to the tannery, which they have in every district, 
or one tanner to so many prefects within a certain distance — within easy 
riding distance, at least — and those hides are there tanned by the tan- 
nery. After that is over with, after the hides are tanned, they are sent 
to the manufactory, where they manufacture shoes or saddles — the manu- 
factory of saddles and bridles — or anything that one can want. I got 
there last summer a pair of boots and a pair of leggings made. I had 
saddlebags also, and one thing and another of a similar kind, a saddle 
and bridle, made as well, and those things I used and wore until I left 
the island. Well, I had them made last July, and I wore them until 
this May, and they were all in just as good condition when I gave them 
up as when I got them, so you can imagine they are made well. 

Q. How about clothing? — A. They are deficient in supplies of cloth- 
ing. It is very hard to get clothing there. You can not buy it, and 
the result is I have seen men in Cuba have their cartridge belts across 
their chests and their rifles across their shoulders and a little piece of 
cloth about 6 inches in width across the middle; and that is all they 
had. They came to the president and petitioned him for more clothes — 
about seven or eight of them. It looks funny to see them — those fel- 
lows, well-built, strong, and muscular men — without a dud of clothes on; 
but they all got clothing. They have clothing of one kind or another. 
Sometimes it is rather rough and ragged and a good many patches — a 
good many patches on the seat of the pantaloons, but I do not know 
but it answers all their purposes as well as the clothing we have here. 

By Mr. Morgan: 

Q. They would not be able to wear any heavy clothing? — A. No, sir; 
very light, all linen cloth. The cost of pantaloons in Cuba varies from 
$1.75 to $2.50. 

Q. Linen pantaloons? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. White or colored?— A. White. 

Q. By using cotton cloth they could still further reduce the price? — 
A. Yes, sir. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 443 

Q. Do you know anything about the repair shops of guns'? — A. They 
have, at various of these factories, men whose sole and only duty it is 
to attend to and repair guns in so far as possible and fix the munitions 
of war in proper shape. They also have, in various places, cartridge 
factories — not cartridge factories, because they could not manufacture 
the whole cartridge, but the soldiers will save the shells after they have 
been discharged and these men will recap and recharge them. 

Q. Do they make any powder? — A. I do not know, but I think they 
must, because they do a very large amount of reloading cartridges, and 
I have seen the bills of lading of two or three expeditions that have 
arrived, and I have never seen any loose powder mentioned on these 
bills; so they must have them, but where they are I do not know. They 
have printing presses (paper) established in various sections of the 
island. I think they have — I would not like to say how many, but I 
think four or five papers. 

Q. Weekly papers'? — A. Weekly or monthly. 

Q. Do they circulate freely among the people? — A. Yes, sir; indeed 
they do, and are found in the cities as well. 

Q. I suppose the government has been able to keep up a constant 
flow of information in regard to the movements of the Spaniards. — A. 
Oh, yes; that is very readily done. It is simply here. They have, we 
will say — take Puerto Principe for sample. They have before that city 
a small detachment of men, all on duty all the time, riding around the 
city, back and forth, here and there and elsewhere. Their sole and 
only purpose is to see when a detachment comes out, and when a 
detachment appears they will immediately notify the nearest com- 
mander as to the probable course of the Spainards, and they will then 
follow that column and see where they go and what course they take, 
and will notify him or all the commanders in that district, and again 
when the column returns they will notify them that they are back in 
the town. 

Q. So that they are in constant observation of the enemy? — A. Yes, 
sir ; they have every city in the country guarded that way. 

Q. Do the Spaniards attempt any such system of espionage? — A. 
No, sir; they can not do it, unless it be by series of spies, which I 
doubt very much the capacity of the Spaniards to obtain. I believe 
the men would be detected, and if a man is detected in the capacity of 
a spy his fate is pretty sure and pretty sudden; at least it would be 
there. 

Q. Have they flour or corn mills in Cuba, or do they rely on the pestle 
and mortar? — A. They have no mills that I saw anything of. The rea- 
son simply is that the Spanish would, if they had any such thing, only 
be too glad to come out and destroy it from the towns. They rely on 
pestles and mortars and grind the corn in their coffee mills. 

Q. Corn mills? — A. They grind the corn in the coffee mills. 

Q. How many crops of corn are raised in Cuba? — A. I asked that 
question myself about six months ago, and you want me to give the 
answer I received? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. The answer as given me was three crops, and I was 
surprised. 

Q. So it is substantially a continual supply of corn? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And they also have the advantage of roasting ears? — A. Yes, sir; 
and they have sweet potatoes. You can plant them and they will grow 
without any cultivation. 

Q. Without cultivation?— A. Yes, sir. All you have to do is to 
scratch the ground and drop in the seed, and it will grow of itself. 



444 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Do they grow of a fine size? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. It is a good potato ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Sweet? — A. Sweet and very palatable. The yucca grows in the 
same way, without any care at all. They have also a great many ba- 
nanas, or plantains, as they are termed, growing in Cubitos at the pres- 
ent time. They have a great many of those, and they send over from 
the rest of the province every once in a while to secure several mule 
loads of the yucca and plantain, or boniato — the sweet potato. 

Q. I do not understand about that plant yucca. Is that a plant 
which grows in moist soil, like a radish? — A. No, sir; it belongs to the 
family of tubers, I believe. It is the root, and the root will increase in 
size, and will weigh anywhere from 5 to 100 pounds. They are very 
large. 

Q. Is it palatable and nutritious? — A. Indeed it is. It is just about 
like our Irish potato; just about the same thing. 

Q. Do they cook it in the same way as Irish potatoes? — A. Yes, sir; 
they cut it up and put it in water and allow it to boil just about as with 
Irish potatoes. 

Q. It comes out mealy? — A. jSTo, sir; it comes out in the original 
pieces, very nicely done — mealy and nice to the taste. 

Q. They eat it with salt, just as you would an Irish potato? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. That food does not require cultivation? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Grows indigenous?— A. Yes, sir; wherever you chance to put it. 

Q. I have been interested, too, in another thing, and that is, what is 
the production of hogs in the island of Cuba? — A. They have an immense 
number. Contrary to the custom in the United States, they allow them 
to run wild, and they eat whatever they find. I do not know exactly 
what they do live on, but they live very well. They have what they 
call hog dogs, and if you want a hog you call the dogs, and they will 
take after the hogs, and after chasing them around, the dogs will seize 
them by the ears and maintain their hold until the man comes up, and 
then they tie their legs together and sling him across the saddle and 
take him to the house and kill him. 

Q. They are in good condition? — A. Always. I do not know what 
they live on; it is absolutely impossible for me to say that; but it is 
impossible to say that they are otherwise than in good condition. 

Q. They make good meat? — A. I think the flesh of a hog in Cuba is 
far better and more palatable than the flesh of the hog grown in the 
United States. 

Q. Owing to the character of the food? — A. Yes,sir; I suppose so. 

Q. I have heard the same observation made about the beef in Cuba. 
Do you justify the statement that the beef is excellent? — A. Yes, sir. 
I do not believe, however, that the beef in Cuba is better than the beef 
found in the United States, for the reason that you can not secure a 
cut of beef there as you can here. 

Q. The cattle are smaller? — A. Yes, sir; and again, in cutting the 
meat up they do not use the same care. 

Q. Is it native wild stock or improved? — A. I do not know how 
that is. 

Q. Are they broad-horned? — A. Some; but the major portion are 
short-horned or no horns at all. 

Q. As a rule, are they good milch cattle? — A. Yes, sir; very good, 
indeed. You know how they milk there? It struck me as being one 
of the funniest things I ever saw. I do not believe I ever saw it done 
that way in this country. They will have a square inclosure with a 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 445 

high fence around it, and they will drive the cow in, and they will 
loosen her calf, and the calf will come and smell around and begin 
sucking, and the man will wait until it has taken two or three sucks, 
and then he will take a rope and slip it over the calf's head and tie it 
in such a way as to keep the calf's head about a foot or a foot and a 
half from the teats, and the cow will then stand still and the man will 
commence his milking. When he is through he will take the rope off, 
and the calf will then go back to sucking. It is the first place I ever 
saw it done. 

Q. Some witnesses have stated that there is rather an abundant pro- > 
duction of butter and cheese. — A. There is an abundant production of 
cheese; but butter, I never saw a particle while I was in Cuba; but of 
cheese there is plenty, and of honey. 

Q. Take the food resources of the Island of Cuba in the part of it 
under the control of the Cubans. Do you think they are able to keep 
up their belligerent operations and supply their army of, say, 30,000 to 
50,000 men for a considerable length of time against the Spanish? — A. 
I do, sir. 

Q. And at the same time afford to the rural population a comfortable 
subsistence? — A. Yes, sir; they are able to do that, and do it very 
easily. 

Q. How about Cubitos and the town near there which is the capital'? — 
A. The capital is at Aguira; that is in Camaguey. Cubitos is in Caina- 
guey, but it is a province, and Aguara is in Puerto Principe, 3 leagues 
west of Wymero, which was captured by the Cubans last November. 

Q. Is that a town? — A. Yes, sir — no, it is not a town — it is a collec- 
tion of houses that the President has put up for the capital. 

Q. Have the Spanish ever attempted to drive them out of there? — 
A. Never as yet, up to the time I left Cuba, although one day there 
was word sent that a Spanish column of 4,000 men was only a league 
'and a half off, and we had orders to get our horses up and saddled, 
and everything. on them, ready to start at a moment's notice. However, 
it proved to be a false rumor, and we turned the horses out and allowed 
them to feed. If the Spaniards so desire, there will be nothing under 
Heaven to prevent them from destroying it. 

Q. It is not surrounded by a cordon of troops? — A. No, sir. 

Q. How is it with the fortress at Cubitos ; is there a fortified place 
there? — A. Not a thing. 

Q. Is that as at Aguira ? — A. Cubitos is a province, and the Spaniards 
have not in this war invaded the province of Cubitos, and the result is 
that all the rest of the province of Camaguey sends to Cubitos for pro- 
visions. They grow everything in Cubitos. 

Q. What advantage would the Cubans have in defending Cubitos 
over any other province? — A. None at all. 

Q. Can you count on the Spaniards not disturbing it? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Is it elevated? — A. It is an elevated place by one or two roads, 
but approached by all the others it is level and plain. I have no idea 
why the Spaniards do not invade it. I should think they would, but 
apparently they seem to hesitate and balk. 

Q. How far is it from the nearest railroad? — A. The line Nuevitas 
is here, and Puerto Principe is here [indicating]. There is a line 
between Nuevitas and Principe, and Cubitos is just this side of the 
railroad track. 

Q. Eight on the line with the railroad? — A. Yes, sir; right on the 
line, but of course the railroad only passes along the line, and the line 
extends back here several leagues. 



446 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. I am speaking' about the collection of houses you call the seat of 
government. — A. At Aguira? 

Q. Yes, sir; how far is that from the railroad? — A. About 16 or 17 
leagues. 

Q. From the railroad ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How far from the coast? — A. It could not be more than 3 or 4 
leagues. 

Q. Is there any fort near it? — A. Y'es, sir; there is a fort; but what 
the name of that fort is I have forgotten — Guayamo. There is a port 
near it, however; that is, within a day's ride. 

Q. How far from Banos? — A. Way, way to the west of Banos; that 
is, in Orienta, near the eastern part. This is about 17 or 18 leagues — 
possibly 20 — from Puerto Principe. 

Q. Since you have been in Cuba has there been any invasion of that 
part of the country you speak of? — A. No, sir; there were of course 
several columns at previous times, and last November, when the Span- 
iards held Wymero and Oascorra and some other towns up there, there 
were several columns during the year visited those places with supply 
trains. Every so often they would send a train load of provisions to 
the various towns, and every train of provisions sent the Spanish and 
Cubans used to have a picnic; in other words, to have a tussle — a fight. 

Q. Do the Spaniards supply themselves from the country around the 
towns where they are located? — A. They do not. 

Q. They have to import from the seaboard towns ? — A. Entirely. If 
they had supplied themselves from the country 'round about, which 
they might readily have done, the course of the war would be different 
altogether, but they could not do it now. 

Q. Heretofore they have been afraid to attempt it? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. I would like for you to state in your own way your observations 
upon the condition of the Spanish soldiers in Cuba as to health and 
strength. — A. You will have to excuse me, but allow me to inform you 
that I have been on the revolutionist side, and I have no idea of my 
own personal knowledge as to the food or other supplies of the Spanish 
army, nor of their health. 

Q. You have seen Spanish prisoners? — A. No, sir; I have seen the 
prisoners captured at Wymero and one or two other little skirmishes, 
but those only at a distance. I have not cared to have anything to do 
with them. 

Q. From the reputation, or the facts detailed by the Cuban soldiers, 
what is your idea of the condition of health of those Spanish soldiers? — 
A. My opinion is that their health is not as good as it might be. The 
Spanish soldiers, in the first place, are exceedingly careless — exceed- 
ingly so. They have no sanitary regulations whatever, not in the least, 
and the result is that they die of yellow fever or dysentery, or other 
fevers, and they die like sheep. 

Q. Do the reports as to their mortality show that the losses are very 
heavy from that source? — A. They do. Now, at — I have forgotten the 
name of the point; it is a point on the Moron trocha — there is one 
street that is the principal street of the town, and all along that street 
is the camp of the Spanish soldiers. They must have a thousand men 
camping in that street, and if you try to cross that street you will have 
to keep your eyes very wide open, and look where you are stepping 
with the utmost care, because of the filth on the ground; and yet those 
soldiers sleep right there, eat, and have their being right there; and 
how it is possible for those men to exist is more than I can say. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 447 

Q. Do you know anything- about the civil government crossing the 
trocha? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have they done that? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How often have you been across the Moron trocha 1 ? — A. Twice — 
once in December and once in February. 

Q. How did you get over? — A. Passed through the line very easily. 

Q. At night or in the day"? — A. Night. 

Q. No attack on you ? — A. No; there was some firing, however — some 
firing at us. One of the cooks on the way back got a bullet through 
the back in his right lung, but it never bothered him at all; he kept 
right on his horse, and kept right on with his business of cooking; it 
never bothered him, as I could see. 

Q. How do you account ior that? — A. As I account for all wounds 
made by the Mauser rifle bullet. It is the most harmless and most 
humane rifle, and I am intensely surprised by Spain's using it; the most 
barbarous nation in their treatment of the Cubans according to the 
stories, and yet the most humane in the use of firearms. The Mauser 
bullet is a steel-clad bullet of .31 and a fraction caliber. That bullet 
will penetrate anywhere, and will go through you as a flash of sunlight 
will go through glass, but it leaves no disabling effect, and unless it hit 
in a vital spot, as, for instance, the heart, which is the only spot where 
you can kill a person instantly — and even there I have seen a person 
live. Unless hit in a vital spot you will not die. I have seen a man 
shot through here, in the head, and seen him alive and perfectly well, 
except for paralysis, a year after. I saw another man, Major Osgood, 
of the artillery, shot through the center of the forehead, and he lived 
for three hours; but if you take an ordinary bullet, what chance has a 
man shot there to live three seconds'? I saw a man shot only an eighth 
of an inch over the heart, and I could not tell for three hours whether 
the heart was touched or not. He was put in the hospital, and in seven 
days he was discharged from the hospital. In case a Winchester ball 
had gone there, only an eighth of an inch from the heart, where would 
that man be 1 ? Dead, without a question. Another man was shot 
through the thigh, and it came out on the inner side of the leg, trav- 
ersing the femur all the way down. The man wanted to remain on his 
horse and continue fighting, and I slit up his pants and put a piece 
of plaster on the wound, above and below, and in ten minutes he was 
engaged in a machete charge. If that had been a Winchester ball his 
leg would have been amputated. 

Q. When the civil government passed through the trocha on the occa- 
sion you speak of, did you have any considerable guard of men? — A. 
Going to the west, yes; Gomez and all his forces were with them. 
Coming to the east, no; they did not have to exceed 20. 

Q. In what way do they transport their government archives? — A. I 
have spoken of the mail. 

Q. By what means does the government preserve the papers — the 
archives of the Republic? — A. They have those all indexed, and they 
are kept in boxes, and the boxes divided into compartments and indexed, 
and any or all communications for the government are put in those 
boxes or compartments, and when the government gets time they are 
weeded out, and the boxes are, every morning, on the march, placed on 
the backs of mules and bound there with ropes and carried in that way. 
The archives of the government always travel with the government* 

Q. But the government does not always travel with the army? — A. 
It very, very rarely trav< Is with the army — very rarely. Last October, 
when we were before Wymero, we must have traveled about 10 leagues 



448 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

with a portion of the army, and that is the only time I can recollect, 
save in December, when the president crossed the trocha with General 
Gomez, that the army was with them. 

Q. And where is the treasury of the government kept? — A. That is 
somewhat complex. The treasurer of the government is Mr. Pina, and 
he receives and disburses all moneys, and as fast as he will get on hand 
any considerable store of money that money is sent, I believe, to New 
York, in some one way or another, to the junta, and there is used for 
the purposes that are best calculated to help the revolutionists. 

Q. In the meantime where does he keep his money; where does he 
have it for safe-keeping 1 ? — A. In the chests. 

Q. Carried with the government? — A. Yes, sir; with the President's 
escort. 

Q. Carried along with the archives? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is there any hostility you have ever discovered among the native 
population? — A. The Cuban army? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. Oh, no; only the kindliest of feeling prevails between 
the army and the people. I have never been able to discern the least 
trace of feeling between anyone in the army and any of the people. 

Q. State your impression as to the affection or want of regard on the 
part of the Cuban rural population for the cause of freedom and inde- 
pendence for the Cubans. — A. There is nothing in the rural population 
existing excepting the kindliest sentiment and the warmest feeling for 
the ultimate freedom of Cuba. 

Q. Are they willing to make sacrifices? — A. They are doing it every 
day. Is it no sacrifice for a man to have his house destroyed, his prop- 
erty all gone up in smoke, to be compelled to go to the woods and put 
up another house? That has been done by almost every Cuban. 

Q. And still they adhere to their demand for liberty? — A. Yes, sir; 
and adhere to that demand in stronger terms than ever. 

Q. You do not find the feeling for liberty and independence decreas- 
ing, but, on the contrary, increasing? — A. It is increasing, and it is my 
impression it will increase, for among all the people they know in gen- 
eral terms the taxation to which they are liable, and they know how 
much heavier that taxation must be to pay the interest on the increased 
debt. 

Q. Has the paper currency now being circulated in Cuba, what we 
call "Weyler currency," any circulation among the rural people? — A. 
None at all. 

Q. Not considered of any value? — A. None at all. 

Q. Their currency consists of gold and silver coin? — A. Entirely. 

Q. The Cuban government has not issued any currency? — A. No, 
sir; no bills of any kind. It has no currency. 

Q. How are the soldiers of the Cuban army paid? — A. They are not 
paid ; it is all free, voluntary service by everybody in the Cuban army 
or rank. 

Q. They expect to get pay? — A. When freedom is declared, but not 
until then. 

Q. The pay, then, consists in support of life, being provided with arms 
and a horse to ride? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And such clothes as can be had? — A. As can be obtained; yes, 
sir. The president will endeavor to see, of course, that every man is 
clad as he should be. 

Q. Are there regular muster rolls kept of the Cuban republic? — A. I 
believe there are. 

Q. At the headquarters of the government? — A. No, sir; I think not; 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 449 

but yet I do not positively know about that. I know they are kept by 
the regimental commanders, but whether they make returns to the civil 
government is more than I can say. I know this, that is, that the gov- 
ernment has a list of every officer serving on the island. I only know 
that through my desire to see when I enlisted in the service, Manola 
Betaucourt, the president's secretary, undertook to look it up for me, 
and he got this list and hunted until he found the index, when he 
speedily got the day of my enlistment; and I asked him then if he had 
a list of every officer in the island, and he said of every officer, from a 
second lieutenant up, is in this list. 

Q. In going about with the government, have you visited and exam- 
ined the hospitals in Cuba? — A. Several times. 

Q. Have they sufficient hospitals and hospital supplies for their 
army? — A. No, sir. In hospital buildings they have an abundance, or 
they could secure abundance, but in hospital supplies they are very, 
very deficient, and they have no bandages. This, of course, is to be 
taken as my last experience in Cuba. They have no bandages, they 
have no antiseptics, they have no chloroform or ether, they have no 
surgical instruments. But I would do as I have always done heretofore, 
in ease of necessity, borrow the surgical instruments of the surgeon 
nearest to me until I was through with them, and then return them. 

Q. Speaking of this want of material, instruments, etc., you speak 
of the hospitals. The surgeons in the field have surgical instruments 
and some supplies? — A. Many times they do and many times they do 
not. I know that in several engagements, two in special, late last fall, 
there were no surgical instruments and no supplies of any kind, and 
the wounded had to be removed a number of leagues distant to be 
cared for, and when they got there they had nothing, not even a band- 
age, not a yard of bandaging, to care for them with. 

Q. How are the wounded transported from one place to another? — 
A. Carried in hammocks. 

Q. By men? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. On foot or horseback? — A. Either way. Many times on foot by 
carriers, and other times they have the hammocks suspended between 
two horses, and carried in that way. 

Q. Under these very unfavorable conditions, can you say that the 
service of the Cuban soldier is cheerful and active? — A. I can say I have 
never seen any service rendered by any men more cheerfully than the 
service rendered by the Cuban soldiers; never. 

Q. They must have their cause very much at heart? — A. I believe 
they have, and I believe they will have that cause still more at heart 
before they get through. 

Q. By which you mean that they do not intend to yield ? — A. Yes, 
sir; they will not yield. In the conversation I had with President 
Oisneros, he said to me that the revolutionists or patriots who were in 
the field would not accept autonomy, or anything which could be offered 
by the Spanish Government, save or unless it was freedom. 

Q. This was in response to a question you asked him as to what he 
thought the Cubans would accept? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do the Spaniards ever go about singly or in small parties in the 
country in Cuba? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Why not? — A. The Spanish soldier is too careful of himself. He 
is very fearful of being injured. The smallest party going out is about 
3,000 men, from 2,000 to 4,000 usually. 

Q. They carry with them no transportation for provision? — A. Usu- 
ally they have a few horses and carry their provisions on their backs. 
29 



450 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. So that their campaigns away from their base of supplies must 
necessarily be short? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Then the interior of the country, except when these columns are 
moving, is practically free from Spaniards'? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They are not found there"? — A. They are never found at all. You 
will never find one or two, or a little cluster of five or ten here and 
there. You will find the guards thrown out around their camp and 
the Spaniard within that camp, and outside none at all. 

Q. How far out are those guards? — A. It depends on the location. 
If it be hilly, half or three-quarters of a mile. 

Q. But they do not picket very far from the camp? — A. Oh, no; very 
close to it, as a rule. 

Q. About what proportion of the Cuban army is negroes?— A. Well, 
I should say less than 50 per cent. I do not know how much less, but 
less than 50 per cent. 

Q. As a rule, are the negroes under white officers, white Cuban offi- 
cers? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q, Are they good soldiers? — A. Yes, sir; very good, indeed; and 
splendid fighters, too. 

Q. Are they volunteers in the proper sense, or are they driven into 
it? — A. Nobody is driven. You can not drive a Cuban to do a thing 
and force him to do it continually. 

Q. The whole Cuban army you would call a volunteer organization ? — 
A. Yes, sir; from beginning to end. There is nothing in the army to 
force a soldier to remain if he does not want to. 

Q. You mean there is no effort at coercion? — A. None at all. I have 
seen General Garcia in Oriente with only 20 men encamped in the field, 
and that was his whole force. 

Q. Where was the balance of the army? — A. Gone; scattered to 
their homes on leaves of absence for two weeks. The General stayed 
around, traveling to and fro to while away the time for those two weeks, 
waiting for the army to come together. At the end of the two weeks 
the army began assembling and at the end of three weeks it was all 
there and Garcia started operations. 

Q. Showing it was purely a volunteer army? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Does that indulgence to the soldiers destroy discipline? — A. Not 
a particle. 

Q. Take it at large, I suppose you would say these operations of the 
Cubans and these military organizations are not only volunteer, but all 
the men regard it as their cause and their fight? — A. Every last man 
in Cuba regards it as his fight and his cause, without regard to his 
neighbor, and he fights, and fights as though it was his own cause. He 
does as much damage to the Spaniard as he possibly knows how. 

Q. Does that individually and also in the collective army? — A. Yes, 
sir. 

Q. I suppose, from the account I have heard, that there is a large 
area of the eastern provinces in which the Spaniards have never pene- 
trated. — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That is devoted to agriculture? — A. To agriculture entirely. 

Q. Any stock growing? — A. Not only stock growing, but vegetables 
for the use of the army; plantains, yucca, sweet potatoes, etc. 

Q. Coffee? — A. In the eastern part of Santiago de Cuba coffee is 
grown in large quantities; in Camaguey none whatever; I mean no 
considerable amount. Of course you may find in the rear of some of 
the houses from 10 to 100 coffee trees, and they are bearing, but no 
considerable amount of coffee is grown in Camaguey. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 451 

Q. In a general way, is the Cuban army supplied with coffee? — A. It 
is not. 

Q. Supplied with tobacco ? — A. Supplied ? No, sir ; it is not. The 
individual members of the army get tobacco occasionally. 

Q. Tbey get coffee also? — A. So, sir; they could not, as a rule. I 
could not get a particle of coffee for four months that I was with the 
army. I could not get a drop; could not buy a grain. 

Q. Some persons speak of wild coffee trees in certain portions of 
Cuba. Have you ever come across them 1 ? — A. No, sir; I never came 
across any of them. I have had corn coffee — coffee made from corn — 
but that is quite a rarity to some of us. There is not such a very great 
difference in the taste. 

Q. Have the Cubans, the rural population, any way of reducing the 
sugar cane to molasses or treacle? Do they boil it down and make 
molasses? — A. No, sir; there is no cane growing in Cuba. 

Q. Not in Cuba? — A. In the part of Cuba I have been in. 

Q. They do not grow it there? — A. No, sir. 

Q. There are some portions devoted to sugar and some to tobacco 
and coffee? — A. Yes, sir; that is it exactly; and they also have gardens 
devoted to the use of the household. 

Q. Are there any considerable number of deserters or prisoners taken 
from the Spaniards engaged in the eastern provinces in stock growing 
or stock herding % — A. Yes, sir; I believe Garcia took the prisoners 
from Wymero and sent them to the eastern part of Orieute, and had 
them engaged in tilling the crops, and for all I know they are there 
still, tilling the crops, but it is the only instance I know of. I know it 
to be a fact that the Cuban government pays every deserter so much 
for his rifle. When he deserts, he brings his rifle and ammunition over 
to the Cubans usually, and I know his rifle is taken, and he is paid so 
much in gold for it. 

Q. And then released? — A. Yes, sir; he can do as he desires; he can 
enter any branch of the service of the government that he desires, 
without a question. 

Q. So he can become a Cuban volunteer or not, according to his own 
fancy as to what he wants to do after he gets with them? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Would you say, from your own observation, that there had been 
much of this desertion from the Spanish lines? — A. I have had very 
little chance of seeing the deserters, but from — I have had no knowledge 
of that personally. 

Q. What is your information ? — A. From my information from other 
channels I should say there was considerable desertion. The greatest 
number of deserters I ever saw was nine or ten, I think, come in at 
once, and they all got somewhere between $14 and $15 apiece. 

Q. I gather from what you say that it is not the policy of the Cuban 
generals to keep tbeir troops in camp unless there is some demonstra- 
tion about to be made by the enemy? — A. That is a fact. 

Q. When that takes place they are quickly summoned and put to 
work? — A. Instanter. 

Q. But that this dispersion of troops does not at all disorganize the 
army nor have a bad effect on its capacity for fighting when its serv- 
ices are needed? — A. Not at all. 

Q. And in the interim these Cubans are permitted to visit their fami- 
lies? — A. Yes, sir; to grow their crops and look after them. 

Q. They are very much in the situation the rebels were during the 
early stage of the revolution, when they were not fighting they were 
allowed to go home and look after their families? — A. Very much. 



452 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. And they would come back on the information of an officer to 
come with their guns and form a line of battle and go to work ? — A. Yes, 
sir; except the Cubans are not called upon to form a line of battle at 
all. The Spanish, in traversing the country, usually traverse it with a 
powerful column and the Cubans want no line of battle at all. 

Q. They want, to fight from cover? — A. They want to ambush the 
Spanish. The Cubans never will fight an open fi<rht, for the reason 
that the Spanish so very greatly outnumber them. Why, in our escape 
from Cuba, in rounding Puerto Principe, there was a column of 5,000 
Spaniards out, and they were confronted by all the force they had in 
that vicinity — all the men they could get together. All the men had 
gone to General Garcia in Oriente, and they could only raise 60 men to 
confront 5,000. Of course, they did not confront them. They had 
several little tussles, but the Cubans were concealed, and I do not 
blame them for being concealed. 

Q. You do not intimate that General Garcia, if he had any intention 
of a campaign, could summon only 00 men? — A. Oh, no. General 
Garcia could summon — I will not say how many, but a great number 
of men. 

Q. Several thousand? — A. Yes, sir; several thousand; and have 
them well armed and equipped with plenty of ammunition. 

Q. When these men go to their homes in this interim, do they take 
their guns and ammunition with them 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; all the soldier 
has in the field he takes to his home. He takes them with care, aud 
looks after them, oils them, cleans them, and is observing them every 
day. Takes them down during the rainy season, oils them, and goes 
over them thoroughly once or twice a week, and usually works the 
lock or trigger to see that all is right. They are very careful with 
their arms. They have to be during the rainy season, or they would 
be so clogged with rust as to be unusable. 

Q. The rainy season is on now? — A. Yes, sir; it begins the latter part 
of May and extends to the latter part of October or first of November. 

Q. You have been clear through one of these seasons? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What effect does that season have on the roads'? — A. They are 
horrible. 

Q. Makes them impassable? — A. Almost impassable. In places the 
horses will go in up to their knees and above. 1 have gone out for two 
hours on horseback, aud the horse was walking, and it was the hardest 
kind of walking at the slowest pace possible. We would be over a little 
divide, and then we would go in away up to above his thighs, and the 
poor beast was obliged to stop and rest occasionally; could not go on. 

Q. The Spaniards, as I understand it, in their movements or forays, 
confine themselves to the main roads ? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They do not undertake to go by the trails, as the Cubans do? — A. 
Very rarely. The Cubans have a perfect knowledge of the country. 
They can 2.0 from place to place without ever once touching on the pub- 
lic road. The Spaniards have not that perfect knowledge of the coun- 
try. In case of a dispersion of a little cluster of Cubans, say thirty or 
forty, they can disperse immediately, agreeing to rally at a given point, 
and be at the appointed place at the time set. In case the Spaniards 
are dispersed, they can not do so; they have not that knowledge of the 
country; they are lost and done for. 

Q. In this rainy season are the trails available'? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They are not cut up % — A. They are cut up, but still passable. 

Q. In the dry season how are these great national roads you 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 453 

speak of? — A. The great national roads in Camaguey are moderately 
good; but I have seen tbe high road of Cuba — I have seen points in 
that where yon might just as well try to fly as to get a wagon (a two- 
wheel wagon, I mean) over. A four-wheel wagon is simply out of the 
question. You could not do it. The royal high road of Cuba is sup- 
posed to be calculated to enable one to pass at any time. 

Q. That reaches from Havana to A. From Havana to Cape 

Maisi, the eastern end of the island. 

Q. From one end to the other? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. One single road"? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. The royal high road? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That is the road you say, even in dry weather, is simply impassa- 
ble at times? — A. Yes, sir. I do not know whether the places are due 
to the storms that have washed the road out or whether they have 
always beeu there, but I have seen places in the road where I had to 
dismount and let my horse pick his way alone. I was afraid to stay 
on his back for fear he should fall. 

Q. Is Cuba a very stony country? — A. No, sir; it is not. It is only 
in these one or two spots that there are any considerable number of 
stones. In tact, all the fields — looking back and thinking of it, I do 
not recollect passing a 5-acre field of stone or stony country while I was 
in Cuba. 

Q. Are their fields or farms inclosed with fencing— A. Yes, sir; 
usually barbed wire; but the barbed wire has mostly been destroyed — 
has been cut. 

Q. So that cattle now are all loose and roam at large throughout the 
country? — A. Yes, sir; the horses did the same until they were finally 
gathered in portreros and retained there for the use of the Cubans. 

Q. Take it by and large, what kind of a grazing country is Cuba? — 
A. A magnificent grazing country. The grass is nutritious and grows 
very, very high, and the country affords grazing ground for an enormous 
number of cattle. 

Q. That is one great resource of the Cubans? A. Yes, sir. 

Q. They do not have to go far to get forage? — A. It is a godsend to 
the Cubans; but late last fall prairie fires began to start here and 
there and elsewhere, and by and by there was no grass at all. For 
leagues along the way we could not find a particle of grass. The ground 
is as black as your hat and as smooth for the want of grass as that 
table. But now the grass has sprung up again, and now you can obtain 
pasturage for your horse in any part of the country; but then you had 
to push on for 5 or leagues at least to get where grass was to be 
found. ;:; 

Q. Do the Cubans feed their horses on grain at all? — A. No; grass 
entirely. In La Villas they feed their horses sugar cane. 

Q. Good feed? — A. Splendid. They give them sugar cane and grass 
in Camaguey, and in Oriente they give grass only. 

Q. The cattle are never fed anything? — A. IS ever at all, or watered, 
except in the case of a man who has a well and a pump on the well or 
a bucket, and no water or river of water near. He, of course, will fill 
the water trough with water, and the cattle will come in and drink 
from it. 

Q. Take the country generally, is it well watered? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Good water? — A. Very good, indeed. 

Q. What is the effect on the rural population of this rainy season; 
do they appear to have worse health in the rainy season? — A. Not a 
particle. Their health appears to be about the same at any season, 
without reference to the season. 



454 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Is it good? — A. Yes, sir; very good, indeed. The Cubans are 
careful not to expose themselves, very careful; they do not expose 
themselves any more than they are absolutely compelled to do to these 
rains. 

Q. Are the rains warm or cold? — A. Usually warm, but last August 
there was one day I recollect that I was on the march, and I got about 
three fourths of a league from where I was going when a furious storm 
broke. I was in the midst of a deep, heavy woods ; could not see any 
sky at all until I got to the edge of the clearing. When the storm 
broke, wasn't that water cold? I thought I was in Iceland. I almost 
froze before I got to a house a half a league from there, on cleared 
ground. I was wet through to the skin in about a second. I had on 
very light clothing, but as soon as I got there I changed and put on a 
little heavier clothing, and I was not warm even then. My teeth chat- 
tered .and I shivered and shook for two or three hours, and I finally 
took my blanket from my hammock and wrapped that about my 
shoulders to try and keep warm. 

Q. That is only an occasional thing 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; that was the only 
time during the entire year. I simply cited that to show that they do 
have such things. 

Q. A man who is not acclimated and did not know how to protect 
himself under those circumstances would be very apt to be very sick? — 
A. Not if he took care of himself; but if he went out and about he 
might have the fever. 

Q. What is the result of those rains on an unacclimated person 1 ? — 
A. If they have no hammock and no house to shelter in it is bad; 
they will, as sure as fate, get the fever. 

Q. Is most of the fever in Cuba yellow fever? — A. Yellow fever is 
the principal fever that is fatal, but I have never seen a case among 
the rural Cubans. 

Q. Have you seen smallpox? — A. Two or three cases only. 

Q. Do they take precautions against smallpox? Are they vacci- 
nated? — A. No, sir; because they have no vaccine matter, but they take 
precautions by isolating the patient and nurse and keeping them 
isolated. 

Q. They are careful about it? — A. They are as careful as they can 
be, and immediately following the recovery or death of the person from 
the smallpox the house and its contents are burned. 

Q. The habitations of the rural portion of Cuba, of what are they 
constructed? — A. Of the palm leaf almost entirely. They take several 
poles, or sticks, if you will, and plant them in the ground at regular 
intervals, and over these they lash other poles with thongs taken from 
the trees and from wild vines, and on those poles they place palm leaves 
for the roof. 

Q. Thatch them?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Does that make a good protection ? — A. Yes, sir; splendid. In 
fact, I do not recollect being in a house in Cuba that leaked, unless it 
had a hole in the roof such as you put your head through or something 
of that kind. 

Q. They have no chimneys? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Do their cooking outdoors? — A Yes, sir; or else — we will say here 
is the house [indicating] — they will leave this part, have a little parti- 
tion across the center, and this part is entirely open; no walls. 

Q. A shed? — A. Yes, sir; and in that corner they will have a fire, or 
in case it is a large place and has several of these houses, this portion 
is inclosed with a roof and has sides. In case they have several, they 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 455 

have a little place beside it that they will use for a cook house, with a 
fireplace constructed in the center, but with no chimney or anything 
of the kind. 

Q. You speak of the sides of an inclosed house. Is that composed 
of palm leaves ? — A. Entirely. 

Q. That is the chief material for the construction of houses? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. Does it grow abundantly? — A. Yes, sir; they have hundreds of 
thousands of palm trees. 

Q. Are these palm leaves cut and dried for this purpose? — A. They 
are cut and allowed to remain in the sun to dry for a number of days 
before they are used. 

Q. It makes them tough? — A. I do not know how it makes them, 
but they make a good roof — a very good roof. 

Q. Do you suppose, in times of peace, that the rural population of 
Cuba live with any degree of comfort? — A. I think they did, in times 
of peace. From what I have seen of them in times of war, and com- 
paring the life they now lead, I should say they must lead better lives 
in times of peace. 

Q. An abundant supply of food? — A. Yes, sir; some of them have 
an abundant supply now. 

Q. Fruits abound? — A. Very, very many. 

Q. In great varieties? — A. Yes, sir. The mango was becoming ripe 
when I left Cuba, and I have no doubt everybody there is now eating 
them. 

Q. Are they very nutritious? — A. Very. It is a fact that during 
the last war the entire army was given 40 mangoes a day and nothing 
else. 

Q. For rations? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How long does that crop last? — A. Four or five months. 

Q. In the wet or dry season? — A. In the wet. 

Q. It comes in the wet season particularly? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Is the principal cropping done during the wet or dry season ? — A. 
I do not know how that is; I have never seen them during a time of 
peace. I should say, as a rule, in the wet season the crops grow best. 

Q. And ripen at the end of it? — A. Yes, sir; by the end of it they 
are thoroughly ripe, and harvested. 

Q. I should suppose it does not require much physical labor to secure 
a living. — A. No, sir; if you merely disturb the ground and drop a 
little seed that seed will grow if you never touch the ground again. 
It is not necessary to pay any attention to the ground, plowing it, and 
going over it continually with the harrow, as in the north. 

Q. Taking it all together, in its animal life, its vegetable productions, 
its fruits, and its grasses, you would say Cuba is an unusually abundant 
country? — A. Cuba is a paradise; Cuba is a paradise in times of peace. 

Q. Is it a pretty country? — A. Indeed it is. Riding along the road, 
to the right side or to the left, you will see the elevations looming in 
the distance, and they are covered with forests, light or dark green, and 
it is one of tbe most beautiful sights or outlooks one can see. Again, 
without hesitancy, you are between rows of trees and in a dense, dark 
shade, terribly warm in the sun, and yet in the shade very nice and 
cool, and you have good herba or grass for your horse, and the scenery 
on some of the lakes is most beautiful. 

Q. Taking the climate of Cuba, during the wet and dry seasons, 
should you say it was agreeable? — A. Very agreeable, taking the year 
round. Of course, during the rainy season it is too wet, and during the 
hot season too dry. 



456 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Too dry and too wet? — A. Yes, sir; I should say the climate is 
all that could be desired of any climate. 

Q. I do not know whether you have thought about it or not, but how 
do you account for the fact that the Spanish navy has made so few cap- 
tures of expeditions'? — A. I can not account for it. The only expedi- 
tion they have captured is that of the Competitor, and that was merely 
a little sailing boat, that could not do anything in the nature of getting 
out of the way. They surely have the gunboats, but, I believe, one 
trouble is, or has been heretofore, that they have not cleaned the bot- 
tom of their gunboats for several years' time, and the result is they 
have got barnacles and one thing and another on the bottoms of their 
boats until they can hardly see them. 

Q. When you escaped from Cuba you came off in a common boat? — 
A. Not in a gunboat; a 16-foot, small sailboat. 

Q. How many days were you out? — A. Four days. We landed at 
Nassau. 

Q. Did you come across any war ships? — A. Not a one. Did not 
have a sight of a Spaniard or a Spanisli ship, and I thank the Lord we 
didn't. 1 had no desire that we should see them. I was praying, on 
the contrary, that they would remain out of sight. 

Q. I suppose, therefore, that communication between Cuba and the 
outside world — the different islands of the Caribbean Sea and theUnited 
States — is practically open? — A. Well, it is open, and yet at the same 
time it is closed, for the reason that you will not find a man willing to 
make that trip from choice. If he is ordered to go, that is different, 
but he will not take it from choice. In that direction I can say I wrote 
home, on an average, about once every second week all the time 1 was 
in Cuba, and I thought my mother wrote to me. I did not know any- 
thing about it, but she had said in one of her letters that she would 
write to me. But I looked in vain for a letter from August until Feb- 
ruary, and then I received two, one announcing my brother's death and 
calling me home. I got home and found that just about the time 1 
ceased hearing from home they had not heard from me, aud they had 
not heard anything from last August until they received a telegram 
announcing that I was in this country, and saw an interview published 
in the paper. 

Q. Through what channels did you receive these letters that you did 
receive? — A. I do not know; they were all addressed to the junta in 
New York to be forwarded. 

Q. They were addressed to you? — A. Yes, sir; and I received them 
until last August, when everything stopped. 

Q. When you sent the letters did you send them through the Span- 
ish post-offices? — A. At times. Sometimes I sent them that way and 
they went through without trouble, and at other times they were never 
heard from. Sometimes they were sent to neighboring islands in small 
boats, such as we escaped on. 

Q. What is the distance from Puerto Eico to Cuba? — A. I do not 
know, nor do 1 know what the distance is from Nassau to Cuba. 

Q. Since you have been in Cuba have you either known or heard of 
any cruelty being practiced by the Cubans upon Spanish prisoners? — 
A. No, sir; I have not. 

Q. Neither know nor heard of it? — A. No, sir; neither have I known 
or heard of any cruelty by any Cuban toward any Spanish, or Cuban 
either. 

Q. If such thing had occurred you would have known of it? — A. Yes, 
sir; I would have heard it. It would have been heralded and blazoned 
over the camp as publicly as if in the newspaper. Everybody would 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 457 

have been literally filled with talk of that cruelty toward a prisoner. 
But that is not so on the other side. I have heard of many, many 
stories of cruelty on the part of the Spaniards, although I have seen 
none. At the siege of Wymero, which was taken by Garcia by storm 
last November, at the siege of that town, there was the commandant 
of the town and 15 or 18 soldiers wounded, some very seriously, some 
comparatively slightly. What did Garcia do"? He sent word to the 
nearest Spanish fort that he had such a number of wounded men, and 
that they were at libertj' to send for them an unarmed force, to get 
those wounded men, and in time the unarmed men showed up at the 
camp. Garcia promised they would be respected, and they were 
respected, and not only so, but those men and their wounded compan- 
ions were escorted back to their camp by two companies of Cubans, to 
see that no wandering band of Cubans inflicted any damage on them. 
What would have been the result if the Spanish had captured that 
number of wounded men? Would they have sent them into the Cuban 
camp"? Not by several degrees. They would have bayoneted them 
all or hammered all semblance of humanity out of their faces with the 
butts of their muskets. 

After having read and corrected the foregoing statement I sign the 
same, under oath. 

Harry W. Danforth, M. D. 

Washington, D. C, July 2, 1897. 



458 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



STATEMENT OF MR. C. F. KOOP, FEBRUARY 21, 1898. 

Examination by Senator Morgan: 

Q. Please state your name, age, and place of residence. — A. 0. F. 
Koop, 3!) years of age, and resident of Boston, Mass. 

Q. How long have you resided in Boston? — A. Fifteen years. 

Q. What has been your occupation there? — A. I am in the tobacco 
business. 

Q. Buying and selling tobacco, or manufacturing it? — A. Buying and 
selling the raw material. 

Q. Have you had trade in Cuba? — A. Yes; all the time, more or less. 

Q. Has it been at any time extensive? — A. Quite extensive. 

Q. Had you ever been to Cuba before your last visit? — A. Yes; two 
or three times. 

Q. Do you speak Spanish fluently? — A. I speak Spanish; I can not 
say that 1 speak it fluently. 

Q. What are the principal tobacco districts in Cuba? — A. Vuelta, 
Abija, and Santa Clara. 

Q. Did you ever travel over this district before your last visit? — A. 
Once before, but not as extensively as I did this time. 

Q. When did you make your last visit to Cuba? — A. I got there on 
the 6th of January. 

Q. When did you leave? — A. I left on the 12th of February, a week 
ago last Saturday. 

Q. How did you occupy your time while you were in Cuba? — A. 
Largely, of course, looking after my business, and in traveling through 
the island from one point to another. 

Q. Did you travel on passes? — A. No, sir; on money. 

Q. I didn't mean that. Did you have a permit? — A. Yes; I had my 
passport, having been told that it was absolutely unnecessary for an 
American to have any special pass. 

Q. Could you, with the passports, have had access to the lines of the 
insurgents? — A. No, I could not; not without some difficulty. 

Q. Would the Spanish troops allow you to pass out?— A. No, the 
Spanish troops would not allow you to pass out. 

Q. Would the insurgents have been willing to receive you? — A. Yes. 
I have met the insurgents in various districts. If I went to the lines 
of the insurgents, outside of the military lines of the Spanish army, I 
would have had to do it through a great deal of maneuvering and 
difficulty. 

Q. Can you give us a statement of your itinerary through the different 
provinces? — A. Well, I left Havana the very day after I arrived from 
New York, and the first stop I made at that time was at Cardenas, 
which is not a tobacco growing place or situated in a tobacco-growing 
district. I went there to cousult with the man from whom I bought 
some property. I stayed there two days. 

Q. Now, how far is Cardenas from Havana? — A. About 160 miles. 

Q. Did you find the country in cultivation? — A. Absolutely none, 
except around military towns. 

Q. What was the condition of the population at Cardenas? — A. 
Something horrible; something beyond all description. 
| ■' Q. Do you apply that to the reconcentrados as well as to the people 
who are not affected by that order? — A. I apply that strictly to the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 459 

reconcentrados, because the condition of the other class of the popula- 
tion is altogether different. They have something on which to live ; they 
have their homes, too. The number of reconcentrados forced into Car- 
denas amounts to 35,000, out of which about 26,000 have died. 

Q. What you saw, then, was a people in a very pitiable and starving 
condition? — A. Yes. At one time I saw a woman lying in a doorway 
in Cardenas with two dead children lying in her arms, and herself abso- 
lutely unable to speak, or even make a motion. She was in the last 
stages of starvation. 

Q. What doorway was that? — A. I don't know exactly; but it was 
on one of the leading streets there. I can not exactly describe the 
doorway. Then again, I saw four or five crazy men— lunatics — who 
were chattering, laughing, crying, cursing — horrible beyond descrip- 
tion. And inquiring what brought them to that crazy state from an in- 
dividual in the Hotel Union there, I was told that it was brought on 
them by starvation, mainly. With one of them it was the result of 
finding his whole family starved, and he not able to help them. 

Q. Do you know whether any of the benevolent offerings of the 
United States had reached Cardenas yet while you were there 1 ? — A. 
No, they had not. 

Q. Can you state any fact which will show that they had not? — A. I 
was informed by prominent American officers that they did not have 
even enough to reach over the city of Havana. Nothing came outside 
of the city of Havana while I was there. 

Q. In what kind of habitations do these people at Cardenas dwell? — 
A. They live in straw huts, as you might call them, built up from the 
ground about 7 feet high, and covered with straw. They are built like 
an "A" tent and are called bojios. 

Q. While in Cardenas did you note what was called " the zone of 
cultivation" 1 ? — A. 1 noticed it very distinctly in going into the city on 
the railroad and in walking about the country. It is on the other side 
of a military line and is called zone of cultivation, and no one is allowed 
to go outside. 

Q. Inside of that zone was there any cultivation? — A. It was filled 
with huts, and not much room for cultivation. 

Q. Were there any crops growing 8 ? — A. No. There was no room. 
There were a few gardens, and little ones at that. 

Q. Did you see any vegetables growing"? — A. Yes; something of 
that kind, but very meager; not even enough for a population of 2,000, 
much less a population of 60,000 or 70,000. 

Q. From its appearance would you suppose or would you judge that 
that agricultural zone around Cardenas would, if cultivated to its 
fullest extent, enable the reconcentrados who are upon it to live? — A. 
Simply impossible. 

Q. I suppose Cardenas is a fortified town, — A. It is. It is a seaport 
town and is also fortified with blockhouses in the rear, and has also 
one or two small forts there. 

Q. You spent two days, I believe you said, in Cardenas? — A. Yes. 

Q. During that time did you observe that there was any business 
being carried on from the outside? — A. Very little indeed. Everyman 
whom I interviewed, from the hotel men to the ship brokers, said that 
business was absolutely at a standstill. 

Q. Was the gentleman you went there to see one of your customers 
or correspondents?. — A. He was. He was the man from whom I bought 
property. 

Q. Did you know him before? — A. I did. 



460 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. What was Iris condition as regards business? — A. He was a man 
who was at one time very well off, and even now has some property 
and manages to get along rather well. 

Q. If I get a correct idea of your statements, the land between 
Havana and Cardenas was a waste, and the country around Cardenas 
a waste? — A. Yes. I will give you a fuller description. On my jour- 
ney I passed through the following towns: The hrst one of any impor- 
tance was Jocoro, and the condition around there was pitiable, the 
children and women gathering around the depot, and asking for pennies 
and for bread and crying with hunger. It was too horrible to describe. 
The next town of any importance was Bainda, and the condition there 
was the same. The next town was Aggucata, of seven or eight thou- 
sand population, and into this town were forced 10,000 reconcentrados. 
The condition in this town was something terrible, and I understood 
from the conductor of the train that in this town out of 10,000 popula- 
tion only about 2,000 lived. 

The next town was a small one — Empline — which was in the same 
condition as the others, the women and children running around the 
depot begging. The next one was Mocha. This is a very large town, 
and into it had been forced from eight to ten thousand reconcentrados, 
and very few of them lived. I remember we had to lay over there for 
half an hour, and I got out and examined some of the huts. They 
were all scattered along the railroad track, hundreds of them in a row. 
I went through a great many rows, and looked into a great many of the 
huts. They were empty, their occupants having died. About one fourth 
of the huts were occupied and the rest unoccupied. The next town 
was Matanzas. 

Q. As you have mentioned Matanzas, please to describe on your 
visits there what you saw. — A. Matanzas is one of the worst towns on 
the whole island. It has a population of 70,000. 

Q. Is it a fortified town*? — A. Yes; it has a very large harbor, and 
in ordinary times does a good business — sugar business especially. 

Q. What was the state of business as you observed at the time of 
your visit? — A. Absolutely at a standstill. Everything in the way of 
manufacturing is at a standstill, and the condition of the reconcentra- 
dos in Matanzas, what there is left of them, is about as bad as you 
will find anywhere on the island. 

Q. How many had been assembled there! — A. Somewhere between 
35,000 and 40,000. 

Q. How manv were left when you were there? — A. About 8,000 or 
9,000. 

Q. You saw them? — A. I did. As I have said, at every railroad sta- 
tion crowds of women and children gathered around and begged for 
money and for bread. It is an everyday experience. 

Q. What they live upon, I suppose, is alms/ — A. Alms, yes; which 
they get from strangers passing through the towns. The Government 
is not making any attempt to feed them, and the local people there are 
in such a condition that there .are few of them who are able to give any- 
thing; and those who would have been able to give them something 
have left the country. In fact, that is the same story of a great many 
towns. The people who live there and belong there are poor them- 
selves, and are not able to help these people even if they wanted to. 

Q. jS"ow, about the "zone of cultivation" around Matanzas? — A. The 
"zone of cultivation" around Matanzas is, of course, considerably larger 
than around the other towns, but in proportion to the population there 
is in Matanzas to the proportion of reconcentrados who have been 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 461 

forced in there it is even smaller, I presume, than in some of the other 
towns. Into that town of 70,000 population were forced 35,00(1 or 40,00(J, 
and that is quite an addition to a town, and for that reason the line of 
cultivation, while it is larger than in other towns, is simply insufficient 
for such a population as there is there. 

Q. Could you see from appearances that the population of reconcen- 
trados were really deriving any support from these cultivation zones'? — 
A. It is hard to tell who receives the benefit from these cultivation 
zones. I am under the impression that most of the products from these 
cultivation zones were supplied to the city markets. They had not 
much of a chance to cultivate anything. What they do cultivate is 
done practically in the street. Between every row of huts there is a 
road about twenty feet wide, and along in that road, in what you might 
really call the street, I have seen them try to plant potatoes, etc. I 
have at various times tried to find out where the vegetables, etc., which 
were raised inside the military zone went, but was never able to find 
out. I was always told that they were sent to the markets. 

Q. Was that supply of any real consequence toward the support of 
the population"? — A. It was absolutely insufficient. In all my experi- 
ences with the liviug expenses in the interior of Cuba, 1 will say that 
it is something phenomenal, and altogether beyond the reach of ordi- 
nary individuals. I have paid at various times 25 cents for a little 
piece of bread which weighed not more than two ounces. For two eggs 
and rice I have paid anywhere, from 50 to 75 cents; and for a small 
piece of ice, such as you would want for your glass of water, I have 
paid 25 cents. Beef and other meats, if they have any, is enormously 
high in price and absolutely unfit to eat. The only thing they have 
there on which you could really live is rice and eggs, and occasionally 
some potatoes; but they are all very expensive. 

Q. Are there any other incidents attending your visit at Matanzas 
that will throw any light on the condition of the people there? — A. 
Well, I did not stay so very long at Matanzas, although I was there 
three different times — merely stopping off to take the next train — and I 
did not look around so very much ; not so much as I did at other towns. 

Q. Proceed. — A. Guanbama is a town of 8,0i)0 or 10,000 population. 
This is another miserable town, and the affairs there are in a very bad 
state. A great many were driven in there, but I have not the exact 
figures, having given it to a party in Havana, and kept no copy. 

Q. Now, is that in the sugar district? — A. Yes. 

Q. Did you find any business going on in Guanbama? — A. Abso- 
lutely none; and the condition there was the same as in the other 
towns; women and children gathering around, all in a starving condi- 
tion, begging for bread. The next place was Limonar. That was 
another place in which the condition was very bad. I passed lots of 
small places of which I made no note. Next place was Coliso, which 
also was in a very bad state. The next place was Jovejouna, a railroad 
center where you change cars for Santa Clara, Cardenas, and other 
I>1 aces; and I have passed through that place seven or eight times on 
my travels on the island, and during these visits I have had several 
times a lay over of half an hour, and during that time would go and 
investigate the huts. 

I found them to be in horrible shape there. The town has a popula- 
tion of, I think, 10,000, and the amount of concentrados, I was told, 
amounted to as many as the population. I was informed that very few 
of them lived, the death rate being phenomenal. And there, also, you 
could see half-naked women and children in a starving condition, their 



462 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

feet and stomachs swollen. After studying the disease one could cal- 
culate about how long they would live in that condition. I recall another 
incident. In getting into Jovejouna there was, as usual, a crowd of 
women aDd children begging; and four or five little girls came through 
the train begging. They ranged from three to six years of age. In the 
car was a Spanish officer, and as the little girls went by one of them 
brushed against him, and he immediately turned and kicked her in the 
stomach, knocking her over, and in falling she knocked over the one 
next to her, and so on until all five of the little girls fell down in the 
aisle. 

It was so brutal that I felt like throwing him out of the window, but 
of course had to restrain myself. Quintaua was another town about 
which about the same story is to be told. It is not so large as some of 
the other towns. The next town is Precio. I went' through it also. 
The next town Eeta Mai. The next one Aguica. The next is Magagua, 
and the next Alvarez. At the last-named place the condition was poor — 
a large amount of concentration to a small population, and nothing left 
of them. The next town is Modoza. The next Santo Domingo, a rail- 
road center, where you change cars, and which is in very poor condition. 
You have all read the story of it sent here by Mr. Pepper. That is the 
true story, and I indorse Pepper's story of that and of other places in 
Cuba as being correct. Esperanza is a very bad place. Before the war 
it was a thriving place, but now there is nothing going on whatever. 
The next place is Santa Clara, which is the capital of Santa Clara Prov- 
ince, and military headquarters for that province also. It is a town of, 
ordinarily, a population of fifteen to eighteen thousand, and into that 
city were driven something like 12,000 concentrados. 

Q. How many were there when you visited it"? — A. How many recon- 
centrados? I have the exact figures. Out of that number 7,829 have 
died. 

Q. From whom did you get this information? — A. Eight from the 
judge of the civil court. He has to issue certificates for burial for every- 
one who dies. 

Q. The account you got was of those who had been buried according 
to law? — A. According to law, yes; entirely. 

Q. For everyone of them a certificate of burial has been issued, and 
doubtless very many not included? — A. Yes; a great many not included, 
they being carted off and buried, and we never see or hear of them. 

Q. Nobody ever knows who they are? — A. No; they are gone and 
that's all. In the State of Santa Clara I saw so much suffering and so 
many horrible sights that I do not know whether there is any use in 
relating any of them. 

Q. You can state some of the instances which impressed you as being 
characteristic of the situation. — A. One of the saddest, if not the sad- 
dest, sight 1 saw was the case of a woman who stood in front of a 
hotel in Santa Clara, and who dropped dead when I handed her a piece 
of bread. That was the saddest sight I saw on the whole trip. 

Q. Did she undertake to eat it? — A. She dropped the baby which 
she had in her arms, grabbed the piece of bread which I handed her, 
drove her teeth into it and fell over dead. She had a baby in her arms 
and two little children hanging on to her skirts. 

Q. What became of the baby she let drop? — A. The baby died that 
night or the next morning. I found out in the morning that it had 
died; and the other two children died a day or two afterwards. 

Q. Died of starvation? — A. Yes; starvation. 

Q. What is the condition, or the apparent condition, of the persons 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 463 

in Santa Clara who are not concentrado? — A. Fairly good. That is 
due to the fact of Santa Clara being a railroad town and a good many 
rich persons living there. It is a town that has the support of the mil- 
itary as well as the civil government, who have their headquarters 
there; and all courts are held there, more or less. Of course, as I have 
said, I noticed that in every town the wholesale houses aud shipping 
houses, and a great many retail houses, about one-half, are closed, but 
in Santa Clara there was more going on than in any other of the 
interior towns. You can, however, go on the principal thoroughfares 
and find shutters closed and doors locked. Nevertheless, the condition 
of the concentrados in Santa Clara is something beyond description. 

I traveled around on horseback a great deal and investigated the 
huts of these people, and all the persons I saw in them were in the last 
stages of starvation. There was absolutely no food. They were in 
such a state that even professional nursing would not have saved them. 
Having stayed in that city for a longer period, and at various times, I, 
perhaps, investigated it a little closer than I did the other towns, due 
probably to the fact that I wanted to get out and see something differ- 
ent from what I had been witnessing. I wanted to relieve my mind, if 
possible. Wherever I had been there was death and starvation staring 
me in the face. There has not one spot inside the military line where 
there was a condition that would relieve one's mind, and I was sorely 
tempted to leave the town with my business unfinished. 

Q. Were you out in the zone at Santa Clara? — A. Yes; and the story 
is the same as it is of every other interior town. In interior towns the 
zone is drawn much closer and stricter than in seaport towns. Espe- 
cially is that the case with Santa Clara, Alvarez, and Cruces. because 
they are somewhat in the line of ranges of mountains that are not very 
far off, and for that reason the insurgents have more or less access to 
those places, and they draw their cultivation zone almost within 200 
yards of the last house on the street. 

Q. Let me ask you whether these reconcentrados are permitted to go 
outside of this zone to cultivate? — A. No. 

Q. Have you seen any evidences tending to show that they are not 
allowed to go outside of the zone? — A. I have seen at Cruces a little 
boy, perhaps 9 or 10 years of age, trying to go outside, and who, not 
complying with the order to halt, was shot at. I myself have been 
stopped at various times in trying to get across. 

Q. What is the condition of the Spanish soldiery in these various 
places as to food and clothing? — A. The ordinary Spanish soldier is in 
very bad shape. Of course, the officers seem to have plenty, but the 
ordinary soldier is in a very bad way. You see them begging in the 
streets in the interior towns quite often. Their clothing is very poor, 
and they are a sickly looking lot of men. 

Q. Young men or old men? — A. Young men, 15 to 20 years old. 

Q. Well, proceed. — A. Kanchuelo is another town that I visited, and 
found it in a very bad condition. Cruces is also a town in bad condi- 
tion. Eauchuelo, Cruces, and Santa Clara are in a state that nobody 
would imagine. You can not imagine it. It is simply terrible. Cien- 
fuegus is about the only town in which I can say I saw any business. 
Of course, it always has been a business center. All the sugar busi- 
ness goes there, and still the merchants complain that there is abso- 
lutely no business there. And the condition, as far as the reconcentrados 
are concerned, is not quite as bad as it is in other localities. Batabano, 
which is a seaport town and railroad center, is connected with the boats 
of the Southern Steamship Company from the eastern part of the 



464 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

island, and to Havana. From Batabano to Havana I passed through 
several towns, but made no enumeration, because I was told to stop 
writing notes on the train. 

Q. You were prevented from making notes on the train? — A. Yes. 

Q. By whom prevented? — A. Officers of the Spanish army. And 
that same state of affairs existed several other times during my travels 
in Santa Clara district. In some of those travels, whenever I had a 
pencil in my hand and was trying to write down notes, a Spanish offi- 
cer always came up and wanted to know what I had written down. I 
usually told them that I had simply written down the name of the town. 
In traveling on any road from Havana to Santa Clara, or in any direc- 
tion east of Havana, the travel is very light. In fact, many times I was 
the only passenger on the train. Every train is guarded by a strong 
military force and the cars are ironclad. The road from Batabano to 
Havana has an immense amouni of military guards around it. Every 
mile you will find a whole column of Spanish cavalry, guerrillas, march- 
ing along up and down the track. 

Q. What is the distance from Batabano to Havana? — A. I do not 
know exactly, but presume it is about 20 miles; and in that distance 
there were in the neighborhood of 3,000 soldiers — men on horseback 
guarding the road. 

Q. Were your visits to the large cities mainly for business? — A. Yes; 
altogether on business. 

Q. Now, is Cuba a fertile country — the parts you saw? — A. The most 
fertile country I ever saw. 

Q. Suppose those reconcentrados had just been allowed to go out 
into the country, could they have made a subsistence on the native 
productions? — A. Yes; they could have lived alone on the articles which 
grow in the district of Santa Clara or any other part of the island. 

Q. That you saw. — A. Yes. There is an abundance of sweet pota- 
toes, bananas, and other fruits which are very nourishing, and which 
the natives, to a large extent, use in their daily existence. 

Q. In passing through the country did you see any herds of cattle? — 
A. Absolutely none. All the cattle I saw were strongly guarded by 
military forces along the railroad, and they were very few at that. 

Q. The country had been stripped of its cattle absolutely? — A. Yes. 
The price of cattle has increased 200 per cent, and as I have said before, 
all the cattle I saw were under a strong guard of Spanish soldiers; and 
there is no cultivation going on in any part of the island that is not 
under the guard of the Spanish army, or, rather, Spanish arms. 

Q. According to your observations, how do the Spanish get their 
provisions? — A. Provisions are sent in from seaport cities somewhat. 
My observation has been that the Spanish troops suffer almost as 
much as the native population for the want of food. They are not 
properly fed. There is no question about that. They themselves 
acknowledge that they beg for bread. Of course the officers do not 
come under that category. 

Q. Erom what you saw, and from what you have learned while you 
have been in Cuba, will you say that there had been any relaxation of 
the military regulations in respect of those reconcentrados, of this popu- 
lation, since Blanco has gone into power? — A. None. Whenever I had 
an opportunity I made inquiries as regards that point, and was told 
invariably that the agricultural zone existed just the same as it did 
before. 

Q, Did they say that was because the soldiers would not obey Weyler's 
orders, or because they were not required to do it? — A. They did no^. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 465 

receive any orders. I have not understood that at any time there were 
any orders in any of the interior towns to relax any of the agricultural 
zones. The people who are there just have to starve to death. 

Q. Did you, at any place you visited in Cuba, ascertain or learn that 
the Spanish Government was making any provision for the reconcen- 
trados? — A. Never. I have not, in all the thirty-odd towns in which 
I have been, I have not heard that the Spanish Government has sup- 
plied or helped to supply any starving individual with bread or any- 
thing else. 

Q. Did you meet with any of our consuls in the interior of Cuba? — 
A. Yes. 

Q. Did you have opportunity to know whether they had been con- 
tributing out of their private resources to the support of these poor 
people 1 ? — A. All the consuls whom I have met have done a great deal 
toward the betterment of the starving individuals there out of their 
private means. 

Q. Would you give it as your opinion that they had expended all 
their salaries beyond their living in this effort? — A. I would not hesi- 
tate to say that they have gone beyond it. I know that as a fact. 

Q. Did they manifest a spirit of charity and generosity toward these 
people? — A. Yes. 

Q. I will ask you generally whether, from your observation, our con- 
suls have interested themselves earnestly in the effort to relieve the 
unfortunate condition of the people in Cuba? — A. I can say right here, 
that in all my observations I have felt proud of General Lee and of 
every consul in whose province I have been ; proud of the way they 
have treated and helped some of the starving individuals at their own 
expense. 

Q. From what you could gather while you were in the interior of 
Cuba, would you say, and is it your belief and opinion, that our con- 
suls in the interior have used all of the means that came under their 
control, public or private, to save these poor people from starving? — 
A. There is absolutely no doubt on that point. They have not only 
used the means given to them publicly, but have used also their private 
means, working day and night, to further the interests of those poor 
individuals. 

Q. For what purpose did you visit Washington, and what was your 
method in coming here? — A. In the first place, being in Cuba all this 
time, and seeing all the suffering, day in and day out, and night and 
morning, it was absolutely impressed on my mind that the suffering there 
was not the fault of those people. It was not men who were suffering, 
it was women and children. They were driven from their own homes 
and forced into these military lines. Wlien I came home, and on my 
way over, I could hardly sleep at night. I brooded over the matter, 
and at length decided to come to Washington and free my mind to 
some person in authority here, or to the Senate, the House of Repre- 
sentatives, or wherever I could find someone who would try to do 
something. It was not because I wanted any political changes on the 
island, or that I cared what government they had. My only point in 
coming here was simply to try and save these 400,000 who are still left 
from starving, although there is quite a number of them beyond help. 

Q. Do you believe that if the Congress of the United States would 
vote an adequate sum to buy provisions for these people it would reach 
them? — A. No; I do not. 

Q. Why? — A. Simply because it would be impossible for the Ameri- 
can authorities to get the property into the interior of the island ; and 
30 



466 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

even if it did get there, there would be only about oue- third of it, as the 
rest would be absorbed by the Spanish Government and soldiers, and 
distributed among the Spanish people rather than among the Cubans. 

Q. Do the Spanish treat the Cubans with repugnance"? — A. They feel 
that a Cuban is worse than a dog. 

Q. You think, then, that the purpose of the regulation was really to 
starve these people to death? — A. Yes; the sole purpose. It is well 
known that 900,000 of those natives were forced in Jrom their homes, 
and out of that number 500,000 have died already. Therefore the 
results have proved the motive. 

Q. What was the apparent relation between the soldiers and these 
reconcentrados, or did the soldiers seem to have any sort of human 
regard for them"? — A. Many of the soldiers are low spirited and abso- 
lutely incapable of having such resentment, because, in the majority 
of cases, they were mere boys and in such a condition as to be hardly 
able to take care of themselves. The repugnance was largely among 
the officers and the Spanish guards, which is the flower of the army. 
They are in better condition than the common soldiers. The Home 
Guard, picked men, are also in better condition. 

Q. What is the feeling of this class that are in better condition — what 
is their feeling toward these poor reconcentrados, as you saw it? — A. 
There was a sort of a feeling between them that they would eat at one 
another's table, if they could. If one had anything, they would give it 
to the other. There was no animosity among the ordinary soldiery of 
the Spanish army. I am not speaking of the volunteers, nor of the 
Home Guard, nor of the officers, but the ordinary soldier. I never 
noticed any particular hatred between them and the natives. 

Q. How is it with the officers of the Home Guard ? — A. They con- 
sider the Cubans like so many brutes. 

Q. With contempt 1 ? — A. Yes; absolutely. 

Q. I suppose these reconcentrados' of whom you have been speaking 
are natives'? — A. Absolutely all natives. 

Q. All natives of Cuba 1 ? — A. The majority are white. They are of 
Spanish, French, and other nationalities, but largely Spanish, with 
some colored people among them. 

Q. If I comprehend your description of the interior of Cuba, it is a 
country that is almost entirely wasted and destroyed 1 ? — A. Absolutely. 
There is nothing at all going on in the interior of Cuba. ]SIo houses 
standing. Ruined sugar estates wherever you look. Wherever there 
is any sugar growing you will see a force of soldiers guarding it, these 
soldiers being kept there by the sugar owners, and are therefore able to 
exist. 

Q. It is already then a country laid to waste? — A. The whole coun- 
try is a waste. 

Q. In the present condition of these people, would it be possible in 
their weak state that they could survive by the assistance of the fruits 
of the earth? — A. A great many of them now, if let loose, would 
recover at once — women especially, although a great many of them are 
absolutely too feeble to move much. 

Q. What per cent of them, as you saw them, would you say would 
be able and capable, if they were turned loose, of going back to their 
places where they formerly lived, or to any other place, and get an 
existence out of the wild fruits, potatoes, etc., which grow in the inte- 
rior? — A. Seventy per cent would be able to go back. 

Q. If they were let loose? — A. Yes. 

Q. So that retaining them is starving them in the face of opportu- 
nity to live? — A. Yes, it is. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 467 

Q. Then, you think — it is your opinion — if I understand you, that 
the failure to relax the orders of Weyler in regard to the reconcentra- 
dos of this people to hold them, is still the actual and direct cause of 
their present starvation 1 ? — A. The only cause. 

Q. While you were in Cuba, were you in control of any large amount 
of means for the purpose of assisting your former customers'? — A. I 
was in position to buy merchandise to quite a large extent, if I had 
been able to lind it. 

Q. To what extent?— A. $25,000. 

Q. You could not find the merchandise? — A. No; absolutely none. 
The kind of merchandise for which I was looking (tobacco) was not to 
be had. 

Q. Are owners of real estate in Cuba, as far as you observed, anx- 
ious to dispose of it? — A. There is a large amount of property which 
has been absorbed by the American citizens in Cuba; a very large 
amount of it. 

Q. Well, is there an anxiety on the part of those landholders to 
dispose of their estates? — A. There is. Some of the Spanish land- 
holders are selling off all they have. 

Q. What did you learn about the emigration 1 ? — A. About 400,000 to 
various American cities from Cuba. 

Q. Were they a class of people who had means of emigrating'? — A. 
They were the people who could get away. 

Q. A very large part, then, of that class must have left the island ? — 
A. Yes. 

Q. Those who remained were the poor people and the soldiers? — A. 
Yes. 

Q. Did you make auy computation of the number of lives that have 
been sacrificed in Cuba through war, starvation, and disease all put 
together? — A. Yes; I have at various times asked that question of 
officers, and learned that the amount of people who have died from 
sickness and starvation is somewhere in the vicinity of 600,000. Of 
course that does not include Spanish soldiers. 

Q. Does it include the insurgents? — A. It does. It includes the 
death rate in the Island of Cuba, excluding Spanish soldiers. 

Q. You think rather above it than below it? — A. Rather. 

Q. You have made careful examination on that subject, and have con- 
sulted with men who had opportunity to ascertain as to the statistics? — ■ 
A. Statistics have been collected carefully, and are obtainable by the 
American Government if it wants them. 

Q. And are obtainable by the authorities? — A. Yes. 

Q. Did you ascertain, or did you observe while you were in Cuba, 
from what country the Spanish Government obtains its supplies for its 
army — all the coal and provisions and other necessities? — A. In that 
respect, I have not made a great many inquiries. I heard in Havana 
from an English shipping house that the Spanish Government tried to 
force all their merchants to buy whatever they had to from the Spanish 
merchants, instead of allowing them to buy from Americans. 

Q. Is the coal which is brought into the island from the United States 
or from a foreign country? — A. I judge it is from a foreign country. 

Q. What was your judgment, from all that you saw, as to the state of 
feeling of the Spanish people and the pro-Spanish people toward the 
people of the United States in the Island of Cuba? — A. Well, the 
Spanish business men would all like that the island be annexed to the 
United States in preference to its being continued under Spanish rule. 
There are, of course, two or three different parties there. For instance, 
the Independents and the Annexationists. 



468 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. AinoDg the native Cubans, or those persons who have been a long 
time residents of the island, did you find any hostility toward the 
United States? — A. Absolutely none. Whenever I met any Cubans 
they were always anxious to do everything they could for me. 

Q. In going through Cuba did you meet up with acquaintances of 
former years'? — A. Yes. 

Q. Were they numerous? — A. No; not very. 

Q. Bid you have consultation and conversation with men of charac- 
ter and influence? — A. I did. I have met some of the leading members 
of the autonomy government, and also some of the present Spanish 
administration. 

Q. Now, without stating with whom these consultations were, what 
conclusion did you reach as to the popularity of the autonomy move- 
ment in the interior towns? — A. One that any man would come to after 
having visited the island for even a short while, and that is that 
autonomy is a matter of indifference there, and it is only believed in by 
a very few persons, and those are largely concentrated in the city of 
Havana. When you come outside the city of Havana you And no 
autonomy party. 

Q. Tou think, then, that the probability of that form of government 
being accepted in Cuba is small? — A. It will never be accepted. It 
will never be accepted by the Spanish people. 

Q. As I understand you, you are not speaking of the insurgents? — 
A. No ; speaking of the Spanish people themselves. 

Q. Were these consultations and conversations with men of such 
character as to lead you to satisfactory conclusions as to the opinions 
you have just expressed? — A. They are, in fact, men of very high 
standing and leaders of the autonomy movement in the city of Havana. 

Q. Your acquaintance with Cubans grew chiefly oat of business rela- 
tions? — A. Chiefly with the Spanish and Cuban merchants. 

Q. And have been of sufficient years' standing? — A. Oh, yes; a 
number of years. 

Q. Did you ascertain in Cuba whether or not the leading men engaged 
in business pursuits had any confidence in the good faith of the Spanish 
Government? — A. There is only one answer to that: Nothing. They 
have no confidence in the autonomy plan the Spanish Government has 
so far offered. 

Q. Was the subject of an American protectorate in connection with 
autonomy discussed? — A. It was generally discussed by merchants and 
business men that if they could get an American protectorate with 
autonomy they might have some confidence. 

Q. Their willingness was, after all, upon the intervention or protec- 
tion of the American Government? — A. Yes; absolutely. 

Q. Under the most favorable of circumstances, if Spanish authority 
was fully reinstated in Cuba by the subjugation of the insurgents, 
would you expect Cuba to be able to regain its former conditions within 
a number of years ? — A. Not within a number of years. 

Q. How do you believe it would be in the event of the success of the 
insurgent army, accompanied by close and friendly relations with the 
United States; what do you believe it would be then? — A. I believe 
that the Island of Cuba would be in a flourishing condition inside of 
two or three years. There are hundreds of thousands of Cubans who 
have emigrated. They would return to business on the island, and 
citizens from other countries would also go there. 

Q. And invest money? — A. Yes, and invest money. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 469 

Having examined and corrected the foregoing statements made under 
oath to John T. Morgan, a member of the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions of the Senate, and having stricken out some passages that are 
true, but may affect the interest of myself and others unnecessarily and 
dangerously, I make oath that the statement as revised is true to the 
best of my knowledge, information, and belief. 

C. F. Koop. 

February 21, 1898. 

District of Columbia, City of Washington : 

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 2 1st day of February, A. D. 

1898. 

[SEAL.] B. B. Nixon, Notary Public. 



STATEMENT OF COMMANDER R. B. BRADFORD, U. S. N., March 30, 1898. 

Commander E. B. Bradford, U. S. N., sworn by the chairman. 
Examination by Senator Fryk: 

Q. Please state your name and profession. — A. E.B.Bradford; naval 
officer, at present Chief of the Bureau of Equipment, Navy Department. 

Q. What experience, if any, have you had with torpedoes'? — A. 1 have 
been on duty at the torpedo station at Newport, E. I., when it was a 
school of instruction, as instructor and lecturer in torpedo warfare, 
altogether for a period of about six and a half years, and during that 
time I conducted a great many experiments with torpedoes and saw a 
great many explosions and the effect of torpedo explosions on small ves- 
sels and various kinds of materials; probably have had more experience 
than the average naval officer in that direction. 

Q. Suppose you state to the committee the several kinds of torpe- 
does. — A. At the present day torpedoes are largely employed, under the 
name of mines, for harbor defense. They were formerly called torpe- 
does exclusively — during the war of the rebellion they were known as 
such. Since that time they have received various names in accordance 
with their usage. Those used for harbor defense are placed under the 
army and received an army name, and are recognized as such, and are 
now known as mines or submarine mines. They are the most powerful, 
because the amount of explosive used for submarine mines is practi- 
cally unlimited, depending upon the size of the case, which can be 
made almost any dimensions. It is only limited by methods of handling, 
such as derricks, etc. 

The kind of torpedoes used mostly in the Navy are known as electro- 
motive torpedoes, sometimes termed fish torpedoes, and now they are 
generally or frequently spoken of by the names of the inventors— the 
Whitehead, the Scwartzkoff, etc. They are all of the movable type, 
ejected from a tube, and contain, you may say briefly, all the mechanism 
of a complete steam vessel, provided with engines and motive power, 
means of steering, and carry in their forward ends an amount of explo- 
sive which is limited to about 100 pounds, gun cotton usually, and 
exploded on contact with any object. They have been very carefully 
designed and improved for a period of thirty years, so that they are now 
very perfect pieces of mechanism, mostly used from torpedo boats and 
torpedo destroyers and torpedo cruisers. They were formerly used in 
all naval vessels, but with the advent of rapid-firing guns, etc., they 
have been largely discarded for use in tubes above water, except the 
small vessels which I mention, such as torpedo boats and destroyers. 



470 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

The reason is they are liable to be hit by small projectiles and exploded 
on board. They are still retained for use in larger ships for tubes 
under water, where they are protected by the water from shot or by 
armor. 

Our cruisers formerly fitted with them are now discarding them for 
the reasons I have given. Then, of course, there are a great many 
improvised torpedoes, and a kind that is frequently carried on ships of 
a small size, and sufficient to destroy or disable larger vessels, carrying 
from 50 to 100 pounds of explosive, known as electro mechanical tor- 
pedoes, carrying a small battery inside with an arrangement that when 
it strikes the circuit of this battery is completed on an explosive, and 
they are discharged. They are for the general purpose of fencing in 
ships that are disabled, or of being planted in narrow passages where 
enemy's vessels may pass. They are mobile affairs that are carried 
like any destructive material on board ships of war. Those three are 
the chief kinds used to-day, but any kind of torpedo can be improvised 
from almost any water-tight vessel, and are depended upon more or 
less, but the three kinds which I have mentioned are the perfected 
kinds. 

Q. What is the difference between a torpedo boat and a torpedo-boat 
destroyer ? — A. Only in size. The destroyer is larger. It has the 
advantage over a torpedo boat of being more oeaworthy and stronger. 
It is a steamer designed to destroy torpedo boats, being a larger and 
more powerful vessel. The name indicates the idea of the design. They 
are capable of being used in rougher water, and they have a larger 
radius of effective use, carrying more supplies, and more coal, and more 
men. They carry also more gnns and heavier guns. Torpedo boats of 
about a hundred tons' displacement carry only small guns and are in 
every way inferior, but the destroyers are practically only torpedo boats. 

Q. And attack a ship in the same way? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Mills : 

Q. Do they attack with torpedoes or guns'? — A. They are chiefly 
designed to use torpedoes; the guns are mostly auxiliary or incidental. 

Q. How far can they send those torpedoes? — A. They are limited to 
about 600 yards — the mobile or Whitehead torpedoes, such as I have 
described. 

By Mr. FoRAKER: 

Q. Will they go straight? — A. They are so perfected that if in per- 
fect order they will go straight. They are subject to deviation from 
very slight derangement. They are handled very much as though 
made of glass. They require the greatest care, and will perform a 
great deal of work if everything is nicely adjusted. Even with the 
greatest care on board ship we sometimes find in our experiments that 
they deviate from some unnoticed or unknown cause that we can not 
ascertain — probably, in handling, the vertical rudder has been bent 
somewhat, so slightly we can not detect it. They go under water some 
13 feet, so they can not be interfered with by shot after once discharged. 
They are also liable to be deflected by currents to some extent. 

Q. How rapidly do they go? — A. They go at the rate of from 25 to 
30 knots per hour. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. What is the impelling power? — A. Two propellers. The motive 
power is compressed air in tubes. When they are ejected from their 
tubes, the valve communicating between the air reservoir and the engines 
is opened, so that they act precisely, you may say, as any steam vessel — 
automatically. . 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 471 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. Have their own machinery 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; the most perfect that 
can be built, of the most perfect and best material. They cost from 
$2,000 to $2,500 apiece, so yon may know they are very perfect. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Gau they be sent from the shore without the assistance of a tor- 
pedo tube? — A. No, sir; they could not be pointed. They could be 
started with the aid of the trigger. The tube from which they are 
shot is worked very much like a gun; it is on a pivot, and is carefully 
adjusted, and allowance is made in firing for the speed of the ship at 
which they are fired. 

Q. I would like to know, briefly, the danger from this Spanish flo- 
tilla of torpedo boats and torpedo destroyers? — A. I am not impressed 
as much as many naval officers with the dangerous character of torpedo 
boats and torpedo destroyers. They are frail craft, because everything 
is sacrificed to speed, and weights are kept down for that reason, and 
very thin plates used in their construction, very slight frames, and 
they are easily deranged. I may say that they are boats of possibil- 
ities rather than of probabilities. 

Under certain conditions they are no doubt very formidable. Their 
chief value in my opinon is in preventing blockades, if in ports that 
are attempted to be blockaded. They choose their own time of attack, 
and of course the most favorable time. They are previously groomed 
up for the occasion, everything in readiness, and they slip out to a 
vessel outside, and try to get in their work. At sea with a squadron 
they are so liable to accident and so often deranged that the chances 
of being effective, in my opinion, are slight. I understand that the 
present flotilla, crossing from Spain, have been dismantled. That is to 
say, the torpedo tubes and guns carried on the upper deck have been 
taken off and are being brought over by the convoying steamer, which 
is a converted cruiser. That adds to their seaworthiness and stabil- 
ity. With those off they are completely helpless, shorn of any power 

The destroyers are supposed to be capable of ramming the small 
boats and destroying them that way. If within the destroying radius 
of a fleet, of course they can be used in the same way I described in a 
blockade. For instance, the port of Havana is about 90 miles from 
Key West or Tortugas. They have high speed. They can slip out at 
night, get in their work, and return under cover of darkness, and, vice 
versa, our own could do the same work. We happen to have no 
destroyers, and our torpedo boats have found it rather rough work 
crossing the Gulf Stream between those i)orts. 

Q. How long a voyage, on the average, between the Ganaries and 
Puerto Rico? — A. That depends entirely on speed and the water. It 
is very difficult to form an estimate. They are coming, no doubt, in a 
latitude where the weather is very good. The route from Las Palmas, 
where they left the Ganaries, to Puerto Pico is through the trade-wind 
belt, and tbere is rarely any bad weather there. I presume they would 
make somewhere — their speed would be governed largely by the accom- 
panying steamer — say from 10 to 12 knots. I think the distance is 
about 2,800 miles. Say 10 knots — 240 miles a day — that would be 
about 12 days. 

Q. Have you read the testimony taken by the naval board of 
inquiry? — A. Ouly sketches of it iu the newspapers. I have not seen 
the full report as published. 

Q. Have you read the accounts of the witnesses who testified as to 
two explosions'? — A. Yes, I have; and previously in the newspapers. 



472 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. What do these accounts indicate to your mind was the cause of 
the explosion? — A. If you have noticed, the accounts are conflicting as 
to there being two explosions; some officers state they heard but one. 
In all torpedo explosions there always, apparently, are two explosions 
or two shocks. That is universally the case, and it is markedly so with 
a torpedo or mine on the bottom. The first appears to be transmitted 
by the land or by the water, and then the next appears to be the emis- 
sion of this great quantity of highly heated gas into the open air, and 
in the same manner we have thunder after a stroke of lightning. But 
that is very well known to people who have exploded torpedoes, that 
there are always two shocks, and I have been of the opinion generally 
that those who thought there were two explosions confounded that fact 
with the idea that there was a second explosion. 

It seemed to me that it was quite possible that the explosion of a 
mine broke the ship in the neighborhood of the magazines — we know 
the explosion was in the neighborhood of some of the magazines — broke 
some of the powder cases and dispersed this powder and at the same 
time ignited it, and this in a measure accounted for the flame about the 
ship. The result of the divers' work would seem to favor that theory. 
They found many powder cases broken open and battered up more or 
less. I do not think myself there was any serious explosion of the 
magazine from what I have read. 

Q. What, in your opinion, did cause the trouble? — A. A mine — a sub- 
marine mine. 

Q. Have you any doubt about it, after reading the testimony? — A. 
No, sir; I have not. 

Q. In your opinion, what kind of a mine must that have been to have 
the effect shown there ? — A. It must have been a mine of what is termed 
"high explosives," I think. 

By Mr. Gray: 
Q. Dynamite? — A. Dynamite or gun cotton, or any of the modern 
high explosives. It is possible to do the same with gunpowder. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. What would be the size and weight and general character of that 
mine? — A. I am at a disadvantage in answering that question, because 
I have not seen the wreck and have not read fully the testimony, but 
there are cases on record where ships — not as strong as the Maine, but 
metal ships — have been destroyed by the explosion of torpedoes along- 
side and not in contact, and varying in size from 250 to 300 pounds. 
In the Chilean war two ships were sunk by an explosion in this manner. 

By Mr. GRAY: 
Q. Were they in contact? — A. No, sir; not in contact, but a couple 
of feet at the side and at the surface. They did not have the advantage 
of the tamping of the water. Of course, the destruction is caused by 
the release of an immense volume of highly heated gas that escapes 
to the atmosphere through the path of least resistance. Water being 
incompressible, and if it is under the ship the path of least resistance 
is through the ship, and everything must give way to it. It is rather 
difficult to estimate the amount of explosive, but I would say 300 
pounds of modern exx>losive, in my opinion, would do all the damage 
that was done to the Maine, and very possibly a less amount. 

By Mr. MORGAN: 
Q. Do you mean dynamite or gun cotton? — A. Yes, sir; they are 
included as modern explosives. I notice — I think the opinion was 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 473 

given by Commander Converse, who is a very excellent expert, and who 
has had almost all his duty on shore in connection with torpedoes — 
either he or someone else stated they thought the work was done by a 
slower burning explosive, and I take it to mean — I understand that he 
meant gunpowder. Gunpowder has a slower action ; it is simply com- 
bustion as wood burns, while modern explosives, by their fuse, are 
turned instantly from a solid to an immense volume of highly heated 
gas, called detonation. The effect of detonation is to rend everything 
in the immediate neighborhood. Even tamping is sufficient for that, 
but gunpowder is slower acting. 

By Mr. Mills : 
Q. How would it be ignited? — A. By electricity. 
Q. Either on shore or on some other vessel? — A. Yes, sir; it is very 
simple to do that; it is well understood. 

By Mr. GRAY : 

Q. Do you think it possible for a mine to have been placed there 
after the ship was anchored witli the discipline probably on board? — 
A. Oh, yes; I think it was possible. 

Q. How? — A. There are various ways. One, for instance: It could 
be attached to a line run forward the ship, ahead of it so far it could 
not be seen, to some point beyond, and then taken back. For instance, 
here is the bow of the ship [indicating]. Start from a point here. 
There is the shore line, aud suppose we carry a line to that point, run 
it across, aud come down here. As you haul in the slack you would 
have a line taking that direction. If you knew the distance of the 
ship from the shore you would know exactly when the torpedo was 
under the bows of the ship, and you would haul on the line until you 
reached the proper mark, and the torpedo would be here. [Indicating 
under the forward part of the ship.] I do not think it would be possible 
to prevent it. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. How would you anchor it, then"? — A. Either haul the line taut or 
allow the torpedo to sink by its own weight. 

Q. Can you haul an electric wire so? — A. Yes, sir; they offer very 
little resistance; it could be very small, not larger than my pencil. 

By Mr. Cullom: 

Q. Was that in the mud ? — A. It is not known. In all probability it 
was resting on the bottom, and in my opinion it was placed there before 
the vessel was sent there. 

Q. When that was placed there, why, no matter how, or when, how 
was it to be exploded? — A. How could it have been exploded? 

Q. How must it have been exploded? — A. It was possible to explode 
it by a trigger line and something somewhat similar to what is known 
as a friction fuse. The first ship destroyed during the war of the rebel- 
lion was destroyed by a torpedo of that kind. It was at Cairo, and 
was commanded by Captain, at present Commodore, Selfridge. That 
was by a trigger concealed in a rifle pit, and the operator judged by the 
eye when the vessel was over it, and simply pulled the trigger as you 
would the lock of a gun. The use of explosives for so many purposes — 
blasting, mining, everything — is so common that probably anyone who 
designed to do that work would resort to it. I think it is improbable 
anything else was used. 

Q. Could that have been used without the knowledge of any of the 
officials at Havana? — A. Possibly, but not probably. 



474 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. You have read the descriptions of the vessel given by the divers; 
did it leave in your mind any doubt as to its destruction having been 
caused by a mine? — A. No; I think I have no doubt on that subject; 
I think it was done by a mine. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. In the case of a torpedo that works automatically, or by a torpedo 
localized by itself, would the explosion take place by the impact of the 
ship? — A. Yes, sir; electricity is not used in these movable, automatic 
torpedoes. Fulminate is used, and the explosion caused by the impact 
of a plunger which is driven back into the case of fulminate. 

Q. So that when the vessel struck it A. No; this torpedo I am 

describing progresses until it strikes something and then this plunger 
is driven back. 

Q. Are mines ever used of this kind? — A. Yes; contact mines; they 
are both mechanical. I mean the operation of exploding it is not con- 
nected with the of operation of electricty. They are electro mechanical 
where both forces are brought in play, applying to torpedoes which 
must be tipped over by the object striking it. The electric torpedo or 
mine is one where the operator must close the circuit by a key. 

Q. I notice in the examination by the judge advocate that questions 
were asked of the witnesses, particularly the officers aboard the ship, 
as to whether she had the same bearing or heading at the moment of 
explosion as she had been accustomed to having at the same hour of 
the day on preceding days, and they said there was a difference? — A. 
This question was asked because if the torpedo had been placed at a 
certain point — the ship was riding to a buoy- -in order that the torpedo 
should do the utmost damage, it would be necessary for the ship to be 
over it, and as she swung about it was possible to explode it without 
doing much damage, but if a time was selected when she swung exactly 
over it, it would destroy her. Of course, a very little distance makes a 
great difference in the amount of damage done. The radius of effective 
damage is not very large, not nearly so large as the radius a ship would 
describe in swinging around a buoy. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Was it moored by the stem or stern ? — A. Stem. 

Q. Did she swing with the wind and tide? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What would be the arc? — A. That would depend on the chain. 
They probably had a small amount of chain out. If she was riding to 
an anchor, of course the arc would be quite large. 

Q. Taking into account that she was riding to a buoy, and that this 
accident happened a hundred feet from the stem, what would be the 
arc of swing? — A. She might have had out 12 to 18 feet of chain, and 
if the torpedo was a hundred feet from the buoy, and she swung 180 
degrees from that point, her bow would then be 112 to 118 feet from the 
torpedo. 

Q. Where would this hundred feet point be — how much play had that 

point of 100 feet on an arc A. Your question, I think, placed the 

torpedo, supposing there was one for the sake of the argument, 100 feet 
from the buoy, and if she headed a certain direction she would be 
directly over it. If she headed 180 degrees away, the distance would 
be 100 feet plus the length of the chain, which would be about 112 to 
118 feet. 

By Mr. Gray : 
Q. Feet or fathoms? — A. Feet. You would have just enough chain 
out to swing clear of the buoy. Is that plain? 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 475 

Q. Here is the skip. [Indicating.] Here is the buoy. Here is the 
point of 100 feet where we suppose the torpedo to be. This ship swings 
how far? Can she swing from one side to another over the torpedo ?-+- 
A. It would be the distance from the buoy plus the length of the chain, 
which would be 112 to 118 feet. 

Q. That would be the amount of the swing"? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. She swings that way ? — A. In any way. 

By Mr. Mills : 
Q. In your study of this question, have you ever known of private 
individuals putting torpedoes in harbors to destroy ships'? — A. I never 
heard of it. 

Q. It costs a great deal of money*? — A. Yes, sir; and it can not be 
carried on without attracting attention. 

By Mr. Morgan: 
Q. What would be the weight of a torpedo to work the amount of 
damage done on this ship? — A. That can not be answered definitely. 
It is usual for ground mines, those placed on the bottom, to use very 
heavy cases, so that the case may serve as an anchor. They are fre- 
quently made of cast iron, very thick walls. Buoyant mines, placed 
where the water is very deep, to bring them to near the bottom of the 
ship, are made of comparatively light material, such as steel plate. 
So there is an opportunity for very wide speculation as regards weight. 
I have given you the amount of explosive, and the case would, roughly 
estimated, probably weigh 500 pounds. 

By Mr. Cullom : 

Q. What would be probably the length of a submarine mine with 
300 pounds of explosive material in it"? — A. They are very frequently 
made the shape of a sphere. Those placed on the bottom are commonly 
flat, while the buoyant are spherical. 

Q. One man could not handle it? — A. No, sir; only with derrick and 
tackles. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. What do I understand you to say might be the total weight of 
this, case and all? — A. Five hundred to a thousand pounds. 

Q. Could that kind of a contrivance be drawn under that ship by a 
line as you described? — A. No, sir; I was describing the ordinary 
mines used for service. You can put dynamite or gun cotton in a rub- 
ber bag with air space enough to float it. 

Q. How large are the conducting wires by which these explosions 
are made? — A. That is very variable. Cables laid down prepared for 
use with permanent systems are armored. 

Q. Insulated? — A. Not only insulated, but armored like a submarine 
cable in order to resist abrasion, etc. Yet, for ordinary use you can 
use a small wire like my pencil. 

Q. Do those contrivances generally have either one or two wires? — 
A. Either. In salt water you can use either a reel service or two wires 
without the reel service. 

By Mr. Lodge : 
Q. Would the ordinary torpedo be sufficiently powerful to produce 
the result produced in the Maine f — A. In my opinion it would not. I 
so stated immediately after the report of the damage done to the Maine. 



476 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. Why do you think the torpedo was sunk before the arrival of the 
Maine f — A. Because of the difficulty of placing- it without detection — 
without its being known — after the arrival of the Maine. 

By Mr. Gray : 

Q. That was the purport of my question, as to how that could be done, 
with proper discipline"? — A. You can tell how difficult it is to detect 
work going on at night, and you know something about the intelligence 
of men who do sentry duty in army and navy. You probably know 
many instances where sentries and lookouts, particularly in the Army 
and in important places, have been surprised and overcome in hand-to- 
hand conflict. I do not think myself that any such thing as that 
occurred. I believe the torpedo was placed there before the Maine 
went there, but there is a possibility of it. 

Q. Even with good discipline"? — A. There was no question the ship 
had good discipline. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Considering the swing- of the vessel, must it not have been a mat- 
ter of very nice calculation when to spring that mine? — A. Yes, sir. 
Not in the sense of nicety of practice in adjusting instruments, not such 
a degree of nicety. It was a comparatively easy job to judge by the 
eye. 

Q. Would it have to be done by bearings"? — A. No, sir. 

Q. How would you do it? — A. Because the shore was so near — only 
500 or 600 yards off. Besides, anyone doing that work had the buoy 
as a guide, and if he knew the distance of the torpedo from the buoy, 
and knew the ship, when headed in a certain direction would be over 
the mine, it would be not difficult. 

By Mr. Gray: 

Q. That observation would be very difficult at night? — A. I do not 
think it would, because yon would only have to see what direction the 
ship was heading, and it is not difficult to do that. If you know that 
when a ship heads or tails in a certain direction she must be over a 
torpedo, there is only to know what direction she is heading. 

Q. The lights would indicate that? — A. Certaiuly. 

By Mr. Lodge : 
Q. Was there not opportunity to determine the exact hour on pre- 
vious nights when it would be over the torpedo? — A. The winds at 
Havana are generally north to east; those are the prevailing winds. 
The currents are small. I have read, though I do not know that it is 
true, that the ship had never headed before in the direction she did at 
the time of the explosion. 

By Mr. Foraker : 

Q. A submarine mine is only a torpedo? — A. Yes, sir, under another 
name. 

Q. As I have understood, while you have described the way it could 
be put under the ship, yet in your judgment it would be very difficult 
to do that without it being discovered ? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Cullom : 
Q. I have heard it said that boats were running in and out that har- 
bor almost within shaking hands distance from the battle ship, and that, 
on a night for instance, a boat could go in there and slip something under 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 477 

it without the call of the sentry? — A. Perhaps I have not made myselt 
clear in one respect. I discussed and described regular submarine mines 
for harbor defense. I think I also mentioned that modern explosives do 
not require a strong envelope or inclosure to be effective 

By Mr. Morgan: 
Q. You also said that dynamite or modern explosives might be con- 
veyed in a rubber bag? — A. Yes, sir, and I want to enlarge on that 
now. It does not follow of necessity that that damage could not be 
done in any other way than by the use of a submarine mine. That 
explosion which destroyed two Chilean ships, there the explosive was 
placed loosely in a boat with a false bottom, and did so much damage 
that both ships sunk almost immediately, one while the boat was being 
hoisted and the other while the boat was being cleared of some tempt- 
ing provisions on the false deck. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. In the one case you deal with probabilities and in the other with 
possibilities? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Foraker: 
Q. Your belief is that it was destroyed by a mine under the vessel? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Aud exploded from the shore? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Mills : 
Q. How far was the ship from the shore? — A. I have seen it stated 
that it was about 500 yards, but that is susceptible of exact determina- 
tion. I think the buoy she was using, No. 4, is given on the charts. 

By Mr. Foraker : 

Q. Do you know of any regulations of Havana for the use or sale ot 
explosives? — A. I do not. 

Q. These are not ordinarily found in stores or toy shops for sale? — 
A. By no means; particularly in a place like Havana to-day, where 
fighting is going on more or less all the time in the neighborhood. 

By Mr. Mills : 
Q. You think that mine could not be placed there without the consent 
of the authorities? — A. I do — I will change that; I do not think it was 
probable. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. The probability is that it was put there by Government authority, 
and known to be there by the Government officials ? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Lodge : 

Q. If that flotilla of torpedo destroyers and torpedo boats now on its 
way from the Canaries could be brought to Havana and placed in the 
harbor, would it not then become formidable and an increased danger 
in the naval situation to us? — A. An increased danger? 

Q. Yes, sir. — A. Yes, sir; I think it would. 

By Mr. DAVIS : 
Q. I ask the same question as to Puerto Kico? — A. In a less degree. 
They would be formidable anywhere in the case of war and operations 
of a campaign were conducted against both islands at the same time, 
and that would be advisable, in order to deprive the Spaniards of a 
base. To attack Cuba and leave Puerto Bico would simply leave them 
a base to work from. 



478 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Foraker : 

Q. I suppose, in a harbor like Havana, when mined at all there is 
more than one such mine, as a rule 1 ? — A. Oh, yes. 

Q. And the electric wires are taken to the shore to the same place, 
as a rule? — A. As a rule, in harbor defense the cables are laid to a 
gallery under water connected with a fort or some secret place. This 
gallery is always kept secret as far as possible, never given out. For 
instance, our own forts, fitted with cables and galleries, the precise 
location is always kept secret. I know our forts are planted and have 
these galleries, but I do not know where they are; that is very 
confidential. 

Q. Confided only to Government officials — army or navy? — A. Army 
exclusively. 

By Mr. Frye : 

Q. Why should not those cables leading to the torpedoes have been 
destroyed after the explosion? — A. It was a very simple matter to haul 
them in. 

Q. They are made to haul in? — A. Certainly. Not necessarily, but 
that could be done. After the torpedo is exploded the wires have done 
their work. 

By Mr. Turpie : 

Q. Hauled in by machinery, and payed out? — A. Not torpedoes; 
cables. 

By Mr. Foraker : 

Q. Do you think the ship could have been blown up by dynamite 
carried in a rubber bag, or anything of that kind? — A. I think the 
probability is against it. 

Q. If carried in that way there would have been somebody about 
there? — A. Yes, sir; in that vicinity. 

Q, It would have to be done in a small boat, and fired at the time 
used? — A. It has just occurred to me that one theory might be advanced 
that I have not explained. I spoke of a buoyant mine which is attached 
to a cable and also to an anchor. Suppose this box to represent the 
mine, and my pencil a cable attached to an anchor, that is made to ex- 
plode automatically, so that when a ship, say, swings against it and 
inclines it a certain amount — a favorite mechanical arrangement is to 
have a ball inside which rolls down an inclined plane and completes 
the circuit. 

This arrangement can be made harmless by disconnecting the battery 
on shore, and the ship may bump and it will uot be exploded, because 
there is no electric current — it has been switched off on shore. When 
it is desired these mines shall watch, as it is termed, the current is then 
put on on shore, and they will not then be exploded until struck by some 
object, and iu this instance heeled over. It is uot impossible that the 
Maine might have been destroyed by a mine of that description. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. What is the weight of 1,500 feet of this conducting wire, should 
you think? — A. I can not give you an estimate on that. In the first 
place, as I stated, the wire varies so very much. 

Q. The smallest kind you know? What does a foot of that kind ot 
wire weigh? — A. Wire that could do the work might, that length, 
weigh perhaps only ten or fifteen pounds; you could carry the coil on 
your arm, and it might run up to ten or fifteen hundred pounds. I 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 479 

would not want to go on record as giving an estimate for that — it is 
capable of such a wide range. 

By Mr. Mills : 

Q. What would be our method of protecting our fleet if we wanted 
to blockade Havana — shoot at it at a distance — the torpedo boats, 
destroy them? — A. We suppose the flotilla to be in Havana and our 
ships outside endeavoriug to blockade, and they came out to attack. 

Q. Yes, or we wanted to prevent them from attacking their way — 
what is our plan of attack to prevent them or destroy them"? — A. I do 
not know that we have any plan, but if we approached near enough 
the port to bombard it, of course the ships would be subject to bom- 
bardment. The most efficacious, and at the same time the most hazard- 
ous way, would be to send vessels in to ram them — light draft vessels 
that probably would not strike any obstruction. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. Ram these torpedo boats'? — A. Yes, sir, surprise them and ram 
them. Of course if they get near enough the ship they are subject to 
a very severe fire from the secondary batteries, small quick-firing guns, 
and onslaughts from the vidette boats — picket boats. We have no cases 
on record in experiment where, in the daytime, torpedo boats have suc- 
ceeded in getting within striking distance of well-armed ships. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. Please explain the torpedo nettings. — A. Formerly many ves- 
sels — we never had any in our Navy — were supplied with nettings to 
catch these electromotive torpedoes, but they have been found so serious 
a detriment to the mobility of the vessels that they have been dis- 
carded. Now torpedoes also have a crescent- shaped knife for cutting, 
and their speed is so great and there is so much danger of the nets 
fouliug the screws of the vessels and disabling them that they have 
been done away with. 

By Mr. Cullom : 

Q. So that the fact that the nettings were not let down makes no 
case against the captain of the Maine f — A. The Maine had no nets ; 
they never had any in our Navy, 

By Mr. Mills: 
Q. How many torpedo boats have we? — A. We have six at Key 
West; three more ready to go in a few days down there; all small 
though. 

By Mr. Cullom : 

Q. Are you familiar with this flotilla that is coming over? — A. Only 
in a general way. Of course I could get access to any information at 
any time. I believe the squadron that has started is composed of three 
destroyers and three torpedo boats, and a converted cruiser accom- 
panying them. I do not know the name of the steamer. 

Q. I understand that another squadron has started 1 ? — A. Yes; I saw 
that. I believe it is composed of the Maria Theresa, a sister boat to 
the Yizcaya ; the Colon, and a torpedo destroyer named the Destructor. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Where is the Pelayaf — A. At Ferrol. 

By Mr. Lodge : 

Q. Have they not three more armored ships in dock now? — A. I do 
not know. The latest information 



480 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. I was told they were still in dock, and would be out between the 
15th of April and the 1st of May. — A. I do not know. 

By Mr. Foraker : 

Q. I saw a cable that the Pelaya had started for Toulon. — A. She has 
been opposite Toulon, and has been repaired there, at La Seyne. 

Q. How do we compare with Spain as to first-class battle ships or 
first-class armored cruisers? — A. We have more battle ships ; we have 
not quite as many armored cruisers. 

By Mr. Lodge : 

Q. Ours are heavier ships? — A. Yes, sir; the Brooklyn and New 
York 

Q. In battle ships we are much more powerful? — A. Very much. 

Q. Should you not think it very important in case war was coming to 
dispose of that flotilla before it reached Havana? — A. It would be an 
important advantage. Much depends upon the proposed campaign — 
what we are going to do ; whether it is to be strictly a naval war — 
whether we are to confine ourselves to marine operations, or whether 
we are to land troops on the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and what 
the purpose of the Government is. That ought to be decided first, in 
my opinion, and then we could decide what to do. 

By Mr. Mills: 
Q. Gould we land troops with this flotilla at Havana? — A. I would 
not advocate it. Warfare can not be carried on now as it used to be, 
where a fleet could go in under the guns of a fort and land troops and 
bombard the fort and town and take possession. The lesson of the 
Maine proves that such forts must be taken by attack on shore, with 
such aid as the ships can give, and some place not mined must be 
selected to land. The object of the Kavy now is to destroy what it can 
by bombardment and destroy ships. The capture of territory must be 
left to the Army. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. How are our ships supplied with ammunition? — A. Very well. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. How is the Oregon, compared with others? — A. She is the same 
caliber as others in our Navy. 

Q. What would happen if she were ordered around from Oallao? 
What length of time would she require to make the voyage? — A. I 
have not the distances at my finger ends — she is not due at Oallao 

By Mr. Lodge: 

Q. They call it sixty days from San Francisco? — A. That is a better 
statement than I can make without working out the distance. 

You all understand the geographical situation of these islands. In 
the west the islands of Key West and Dry Tortugas, where we hope to 
keep coal enough, are only 90 miles from Havana, and ships operating 
around the west end of Ouba can coal there, but it is about 600 miles 
to the east end of Ouba, Cape Maysi on the Windward Channel, and on 
that route the navigation is dfficult and the navigable waters are nar- 
row and confined. The coast of Cuba presents many advantages for 
small vessels to dodge out from the shore and do a good deal of harm 
to passing ships. So, it would be dangerous to pass to and fro in order 
to get coal at Key West, and, also, it is too far to go, it takes too much 
time to go and come. If you are on the south coast of Cuba the dis- 
tance is about 900 miles. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 481 

It is very important to have a coaling' station at the east end of Cuba, 
and right across the Windward Channel is the very excellent harbor of 
St. Nicholas Mole, which belongs to Haiti. We used that as a coaling 
station in the war of the rebellion, and it did not then require any very 
urgent defense. I have urged on the Secretary, and I believe it has 
been communicated to the President, that that port be hired or leased, 
or obtained in some way, as a coaling station. 

And also, as I should certainly recommend if operations were con- 
ducted at the same time about Puerto Eico, which is still farther to the 
eastward some considerable distance, it would be necessary to have a 
coaling station near by, and I would recommend St. Thomas, a very 
good port and capable of defense, good anchorage there, smooth water, 
and 1 understand that the islands of the Danish West Indies can be 
purchased for a few millions, probably five or under, I have on good 
authority, and 1 should think the purchase of those islands would be 
cheap at five millions, simply to get the islands, as you would buy a 
cruiser or anything else. 

Q. Do you not think we ought to have those Danish islands any- 
way? — A. Yes, sir. If we are going to go ahead ourselves in the West 
Indies, we must have coaling stations there. 

Q. For our own protection? — A. Yes, sir. 

In response to a letter addressed to him by Senator Frye, asking for 
his opinion as to the tenability of the statement made in the report of 
the Spanish board of inquiry on the destruction of the Maine, that one 
of the grounds for considering the explosion to have occurred on the 
inside of the vessel, was that no dead fish were found on the following 
morning, the following letter from Commander Bradford was received 
by Senator Frye: 

Washington, D. C, March 31, 1898. 

My Dear Senator : In reference to your note concerning dead fish about the Maine, 
I beg to state that they always disappear very soon after an explosion. Many of 
the fish that appear to be dead after a submarine explosion are only stunned, and after 
a time recover and disappear. I have noticed this a great many times during experi- 
ments at Newport. The explosion of the Maine occurred at 9.40 p. m. ; I consider 
that there was ample time for the fish to have disappeared before daylight. I have 
seen it stated in newspapers that there are very few fish in Havana Harbor on account 
of its being very foul. I do not personally know this to be a fact, but I do know 
that the harbor is very foul. 

The men at Newport who frequently gathered in the fish after a torpedo explosion 
so well understood the fact that they must be quick that they were always ready in 
their boats with their nets, and were the first on the ground in order to scoop up 
the fish. On one occasion I saw a sturgeon weighing at least 100 pounds apparently 
dead after a torpedo explosion, and men went alongside to gather him in, when he 
suddenly righted, disappeared, and was never seen afterwards. 

Yours, very truly, R. B. Bradford. 



STATEMENT OF CAPT. CHARLES DWIGHT SIGSBEE, U. S. N., March 

31, 1898. 

Oapt. Charles Dwigket Sigsbee sworn by the chairman. 
Examination by Senator Frye : 

Q. What is your full name and profession? — A. Charles Dwight 
Sigsbee, captain, United States Kavy, late commanding the United 
States steamer Maine. I transferred the command at Havana. I held 
it until I left; the flag was still flying. 

31 



482 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. What, in your opinion, caused the. explosion which destroyed the 
Maine? — A. It is, of course, merely matter of opinion. My opinion is 
that a mine destroyed the Maine, either permanent or temporary. 

Q. Please describe what you mean by a mine 1 ? — A. I mean a large 
vessel or receptacle filled with explosive matter and submerged at a 
low depth, so that a vessel can swing- over or against it. 

Q. How large a mine — of course I am not asking for exact figures — 
how large and heavy a mine in your opinion would be required to have 
the effect which was had upon your ship? — A. The effect on the ship is 
not known with sufficient accuracy to permit me to state, and, more- 
over, 1 think that question is one for an expert, what we would con- 
sider in the Navy an expert in matters of that kind. 

It would, however, undoubtedly take a very large one, but in my opin- 
ion no larger than could be planted near the vessel at any time in broad 
daylight and under direct vision with the means available in Havana 
for that purpose. This assumes that about 12 men, having mutual 
confidence and preserving secrecy, would be necessary to plant such 
a mine. 

Q. And that could be done while your ship was preserving the ordi- 
nary discipline and watchfulness of a ship in the harbor of an enemy ? — 
A. Absolutely, in my opinion. I could dilate a little on that if you 
would like to have it. That [indicating] represents a ship lying at a 
buoy, that being the buoy. That ship will swing around there. 

If a mine is planted anywhere in that area, she will swing over that 
mine in time, it is obvious. Let a vessel come to Havana. She pro- 
ceeds here and drops a mine there. In time the vessel will swing over 
it. It could not immediately produce the destruction of the vessel, but 
in time that vessel will swing over that buoy, and at that time it could 
be exploded. Let that be a scow with a between decks. There there 
is a tube coming above the water line; there is another. There is the 
water line. Outside this is a section. There is a bar with two trips 
on it working with a crank fastened on standards; slings are down 
there, and a mine can be slung there right under the boat, the slings 
passing up through two tubes there. 

From here the wires pass through another tube and are fastened to a 
reel. That mine can be weighted so the specific gravity is very little 
more than water. Tugs and lighters are passing and repassing con- 
stantly, and all that such a vessel — a lighter, say — has to do is to drop 
that buoy. It is entirely submerged and makes no wave, has very little 
specific gravity more than water, hence very little pull on the boat. 
Now, they have a number of hoys in Havana with derricks on the deck, 
very slow and very noisy, and they are passing and repassing all the 
time until late in the evening. A vessel of that kind can go past there 
every day, and she can go to a wharf or anchor in the stream, and when 
you swing over that buoy that vessel can strike the wires and sink you, 
and she can cut the wires and steam away, or she can drop the wires 
wherever she pleases. 

There was a lot of idle army officers there; I do not charge them with 
anything, but speak of the possibilities of the case. In this case I have 
spoken of more than need be. I showed a similar sketch to Captain 
Sampson, who has also commanded a torpedo station, and is besides 
an ordnance officer, and I asked, pointing to a vessel, "Could that vessel 
drop that instantly 1 ?" and they said undoubtedly she could, it could be 
done. I then said, "Can I make report to the Navy Department; will 
you permit me to say this could be done undoubtedly?" The only 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 483 

qualification was that it would take about twelve men to do it. That 
is the real reasou I asked to have the Montgomery taken away. If they 
were going to do anything to blow us up I wanted to have it done with 
a smaller vessel. They had no vigilance whatever and no guard over 
us or our vessels. Their vigilance was great wherever their own ves- 
sels were concerned. 

By Mr. Gray : 

Q. No vigilance as regards you? — A. No; once or twice they played 
a searchlight on us, but the boats were coming and going all the time, 
and we would hail them, and they must have heard our hail, but they 
would refuse to answer the first time and commonly the second time, 
and then they would finally answer in a rather impudent manner when 
they did answer. It was a very peculiar thing; they seemed to have 
no experience of other nations' vessels. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. Suppose that had happened as you suggest. I am only asking 
your opinion. In your opinion could that be done without, the knowl- 
edge of any Spanish official? — A. I think it is possible it could have 
been done without the knowledge of the high officials — the higher 
officials. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. How would they get hold of the torpedo? — A. I assume they could 
make that out of a section of old hogshead, or even a wine pipe. For 
the short time it was to be down an immense wine pipe, or even two ol 
them, might have been taken, and stealing up to a boat it could have 
been taken from one boat to another and then dropped in shallow water. 

Q. What, in your judgment, was the probability? — A. I am not cer- 
tain iu my mind whether to attribute it to a temporary mine like that 
or a permanent one. It is a curious fact that the officers of the deck 
say we never swung in that particular direction before. The Maine is 
lying now in about the position she would have taken to play on the 
Spanish batteries — the Morro and Cabanas. That is to say, if the 
Maine had taken a notion to play on the batteries, she would be in that 
position. Now, I give this merely as a fact ; I do not draw any special 
inference. Here is the mooring point; here is the Spanish admiral's 
house. The Maine was swinging about in that direction. 

Now, if a mine had been planted there, where the Maine could play 
on the batteries, I assume it would have been planted in just that 
place where the Maine was blown up. If only one had been planted, 
it would have been just there. If a mine were planted in range from 
that residence to the buoy, of course, when the Maine swung to that 
buoy, it would show the mine was under the ship's keel. It was my 
business to note all these things, but, as for connecting it absolutely 
with the blowing up of the ship, I can not do any further than I have 
stated. 

Q. If that ship had swung into position to fire on the castle and a 
torpedo had been placed, or mine placed, under water so as to blow the 
ship up in case she did fire, then it would have been placed exactly 
where you were blown up? — A. I would have placed it there. 

Q. That suggests the possibility of its having been placed there 
before you were located there? — A. It does. 

Q. Has it not occurred to you that very likely it was done so? — A. I 
think if we had owned the port and had suspected a possible aggressive 
spirit, I think we would have done the same thing. 



484 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. You would have put it right there? — A. If we ouly had oue mine 
I should have put it right there. 

Q. If that mine had been placed so, how would it have been ex- 
ploded? — A. 1 infer they never would have i>ut a contact mine there 
that would have been exploded by contact with the bottom of the 
vessel, because other vessels were coming and going all the time, bat 
an electric mine, having wires leading ashore or elsewhere. 

By Mr. CuLLOM: 
Q. To have the explosion at a time when they could have control 
of it*? — A. Yes; the time and opportunity to control it. 

By Mr. Frye : 

Q. If that was the condition, who would be likely to have charge of 
the electric battery which exploded the mine? — A. I am unable to say 
that; I infer the Navy. 

Q. An official? — A. I have a certain reason for believing this, which 
perhaps it would be injudicious to disclose. 

By Mr. Morgan: 
Q. Taking the lights on the ship, which had not been extinguished 
at the time of the explosion, I understand they would furnish the 
observer on the shore the position of the ship. Would such an observer 
be able at night to ascertain that that ship was at that moment in such 
bearing as she could fire on the batteries? — A. We have a forward and 
after light showing, and even without a light he could have seen it by 
the smokestacks, which are large. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. Could have seen at night? — A. Yes, sir. 
By Mr. Frye : 

Q. No difficulty in determining whether it was over a submarine 
mine? — A. No, sir; if there was one there. I have no knowledge 
whatever that the Spanish authorities blew the ship up ; I am merely 
giving the possibilities of the case. 

Q. The Spaniards, in their report of the destruction of the Maine, 
make a very strong point of the fact that no dead fish were found the 
next day. What is your judgment about that proposition? — A. The 
ship was blown up at 9.40 p. in., and even though there were dead fish, 
no one knows where they might have gone the next morning. In the 
next place, I fancy, if any dead fish were available, the reconcentrados 
would be glad to get them. Again, they say the fish leave the harbor 
and go to sea at night. I have seen an occasional fish jump in the day- 
time, but the water is very foul and nasty, and I fancy it is a bad water 
for fish. 

By Mr. Morgan: 

Q. The walls amidships on both sides, to nearly amidships, were 
broken down? — A. Especially so; very much disintegrated. It is all 
gone on the port side. 

Q. So that if that was done by an internal explosion the force of the 
explosion would have gone out through the water? — A. That is a ques- 
tion, if there was an internal explosion. 

Q. If there was, the force of that explosion must have gone through 
the water? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Why would not that have killed the fish? — A. I think it would. 
Perhaps not so much, but I think it would have killed them. We 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 485 

regarded that excuse as rather peculiarly Spanish and all that about 
the wave, etc. They were groping for results and reasons. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. I suppose there had been an outward tide from the time they 
were hunting for the fish until the morning. 

By Mr. Gray : 

Q. Is there much tide? — A. Very little tidal flow. There is an ebb 
and flow, of course. If there were permanent wires ashore to the 
points established by the Government, it is conceivable that somebody 
may have dragged for those wires at some intermediate point between 
the station and mine, and having them, may have blown the ship up, 
or they may have gotten control of the switchboard on shore. They 
did not like us; that was very plain. 

Q. What examination did those Spanish boards make ot the acci- 
dent? — A. They had not done anything for a week; had not been down 
at all. Our people laughed at them. Our people kept going down 
steadily, and they a little at a time, and there sat a correspondent of ? 
great American journal in their boat, humbuggiug them all the time, 
passing out cigars to them and making fun of them, and they did not 
know him. They thought he was a great American engineer who did 
not care much for Americans. When the boatswain came to them with 
the other boat he transferred to that, and they did not know him. 
They did very little work on the wreck. It was absurd as compared 
with our work. 

Q. Did you make the examination as thorough as possible? — A. The 
examination was made very much under the wishes of the board of 
inquiry.; whatever they wanted they got. We had over the divers all 
the time commissioned officers. They had part of the time, not all the 
time, a boatswain. The greatest point on our side was that we had 
Ensign Powelson. He went to Glasgow to study naval architecture 
for a year; then he preferred to be a line officer. Of course, the ship 
was very much disrupted. Whenever any diver would come out Mr. 
Powelson would take him and have him give, in the first place, exact 
measurements for the length and breadth and thickness. 

He would take his statement, draw a diagram of what he had seen, 
take it to the detailed diagrams of the ship, and reduce it to a certainty. 
He would know that a certain beam, forward of a certain place would 
be, for instance, 3 feet, and abaft it would be 4 feet, and it would be a 
certain distance from one of the longitudinals, and so on, until he had 
proved conclusively this was that plate or beam and no other. When 
the military and naval men come to look at our report and compare it 
with their report, with the fish story and all that sort of thing, I think 
a military smile will go around the world. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. Was the ship in the habit of swinging all the way around that 
circle, around that buoy 1 ? — A. The trade wind — the prevailing wind — is 
east, and as the sun comes up it blows stiffer and varies less, but dur- 
ing the time we were there it was not so steady in direction, but we 
commonly tailed to the east with the stern to the Admiral's house. 

By Mr .Oullom: 
Q. That night did your boat swing to the location of the house? — A. 
She swung away from the Admiral's house that night. 



486 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Frye : 

Q. Was that the first time that vessel swung that way? — A. Some of 
the officers said that. I did not notice it. 1 have not seen the Fern 
swing- once in the direction the Maine swung. 

Q. The report of the officers was to that effect 1 ? — A. I think the court 
reports to that effect. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. What point of the compass is that ship now! — A. Her bow is 
twisted to a right angle and shot down in the mud. The general direc- 
tion is to the northward and westward. The trade winds are to the 
eastward. 

By Mr. Mills: 
Q. Are they in the habit of docking vessels at the same place as the 
Maine? — A. It was riding to a buoy. When a mau-of-war comes in, 
she makes fast to one of these buoys and swings to a pivot. Captain 
Stephens, of the City of Washington, that night or the next day said 
in all his experience he never knew a vessel to be buoyed in just that 
place, and I think some others said that. 

By Mr. Foraker : 

Q. Do you know what other ships preceded you? — A. The captain of 
the City of Washington said he never saw any vessel moored there 
before. It was almost in the same position as one of the regular plotted 
buoys, TSIo. 4, and there was nothing to make anyone suspicious. 

Q. Were there any torpedo boats in port while you were there? — A. 
All the Spanish vessels carry torpedo tubes. The vessel blew up on 
the port side, and the starboard side was to the Spanish vessel. 

Q. I saw a statement in a paper that a Spanish vessel was fhe last 
one before you anchored at that buoy? — A. The La Gasca came out 
and anchored the day before or the second day before we went in. She 
has torpedo tubes. I was informed several days after the explosion by 
a Cuban who said his father was an American citizen that the La Gasca 
was General Weyler's dispatch boat, the one used by him in any tour 
about the waters of the island. The captain of that vessel never called 
on me. I do not know why. Perhaps he thought his was too small a 
vessel. I permitted myself to suspect him, but I must say I never had 
anything in the nature of proof. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Had you any intimation of danger?— A. Never, except one day 
when I was going to a bullfight I received a placard, handed to me in 
the street, and 1 took it and put it in my waistcoat pocket and went on 
to the bullfight. 

Q. Was there any writing on it? — A. That was another, which was 
sent through the mails, and on the bottom was written, "Look out for 
your ship." These cards are sent by these people — General Lee gets 
them periodically. When someone complained of it, he asked if there 
was any date on it. He said the people generally fixed a date for his 
assassination. 

Q. The placard was handed to you while you were going to a bull- 
fight? — A. Yes, sir; and another was sent me through the mails. 

By Mr. Gray : 
Q. Was it printed? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What was printed on it? — A. A lot of stuff: Viva Weyler and 
viva Spain, and down with the United States of America, etc. Are 



AFFAIKS IN CUBA, 487 

we going to submit to this vessel coming here from their rotten old 
fleet, etc. 

By Mr. Cullom: 
Q. With these lines written '? — A. That came through the mails. 
People handed tbem to me on the street. I could not help thinking 
some of the American colony got them up themselves for a joke. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. Have you examined the testimony sent to Congress 1 ? — A. I heard 
a great deal of the testimony, but have not read it all, because I have 
not a copy. I know most of the important testimony. When I found 
things were going very, very carefully and scientifically in the court, 
I did not take the trouble to attend all the time. I preferred to be 
measured by the judgment of other people. 

By Mr. Turpie : 
Q. Before they commenced the examination, did the Spanish Govern- 
ment make any offer of reward for the detection or discovery of per- 
sons concerned in the destruction of the Maine" 1 . — A. They decided at 
once, and so stated to me, that it was an accident, and must have been 
an accident. For a few minutes, say fifteen or twenty minutes, after 
the explosion, on the City of Washington, they were very anxious to 
know the cause, and I replied that I must await an investigation; it 
was perhaps all natural. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. They insisted it was an accident? — A. The Spanish admiral said 
first it was the dynamo boiler. I said we have no dynamo. He then 
said it was the boilers, and then I said the aftermost boilers only were 
used, and the forward boilers had not been lighted for three months. 
As for the coal bunker alongside the 10 inch magazine, that was in use 
that day; we were using it. There was a full bunker on the port side 
next the o'-inch reserve magazine that had been filed for three momhs, 
the coal in particularly stable condition, bunkers inspected, and all 
right. It was the most exposed bunker in the ship with radiating sur- 
face, so that it is inconceivable that bunker should have been heated 
without being noticed. 

By Mr. Gray : 

Q. There was a special examination made? — A. Yes, sir; and the 
magazine temperature is taken daily and recorded and sent to the 
Navy Department for every day in the month. 

Q. Do you remember the temperature? — A. No, sir; for it would not 
come to me unless it were abnormal. To show you the kind of a man 
who took the temperature, made the inspection — he was a three-medal 
man. The gnnner was under suspension for insubordination. The 
gunner's mate, who was a much better man and had three good-conduct 
medals — that meant that for three enlistments he had good-conduct 
medals. He had been two years under his present enlistment, and 
every mark under every heading was the maximum, and no punish- 
ments recorded against him. 

By Mr. Cullom : 

Q. This suspended man had nothing to do with taking the tempera- 
ture? — A. No, sir. 

By Mr. Gray : 
Q. Did this man escape with his life? — A. No, sir; he was killed. 



488 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Frye : 

Q. It takes, if I am correct, GOO degrees Fahrenheit to blow up 
powder. — A. It takes a very high temperature. We had the brown 
prismatic powder. I should rather trust the temperature to an expert. 
The forward magazine was normal; the after magazine, which is near 
a number of steam tanks and pipes, etc., was often above the normal, 
the temperature there often being 112, but that gave no concern, for 
that was well within the safety limit. It might be, on a hot day, 103 or 
104, or even 112, and no concern felt. 

Q. J)o you think it would have been possible to reach that high 
degree of heat without discovering it? — A. It is inconceivable. All 
those compartments are electrically connected with annunciators out- 
side my door. These annunciators are very sensitive, and often ring- 
even when there is nothing there. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. In what part of the ship was Lieutenant Jenkins's body found? — 
A. The wardroom inessroom. Just forward of that is a large compart- 
ment. On one side are the torpedo tubes. His body was found oppo- 
site that. The ship is very high there, higher than that brass railing. 
Everything was buoyant and everything rose to the top, and all the 
loose articles and rubbish was up there, and that shows why it was 
difficult to get down there to clear away by a single diver. 

Q. I ask the question because it is stated he was found in one of the 
magazines. — A. No, sir; it was a particularly wide open, beautiful 
compartment. He was sitting at the mess table 

By Mr. Cullom: 
Q. When the explosion occurred? — A. Yes, sir. If he had been in 
the shell room — none of the shell rooms exploded. The after part was 
not turn or hurt. The plates were torn 10 or 12 feet above the amid- 
ship section. Forward of that all the damage occurred. Consequently 
no damage was attributable to anything aft, for there was no explosion 
there. The Spanish said the war heads exploded. They were all aft. 
There was but one thing to be taken under suspicion in the Maine. 
That was the mere fact that there was a bunker alongside a magazine; 
but there io not the slightest suspicion of that bunker besides its 
existence there. 

By Mr. Gray : 
Q. That bunker had been examined that day 1 ? — A. Yes, sir; and I 
had my hands on it the day before. You had to go in a passage right 
around three sides of it, and it was the loafing place of the men, where 
they made their little ships and models and did their playing, so it 
would have roasted them out if there had been anything of that heat 
there. 

By Mr. Foraker: 
Q. There was an annunciator at your door, anyhow? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Gray : 
Q. Is the officer, commissioned or petty, who took the temperature ot 
that bunker that day alive? — A. Yes, sir; he was examined. 

By Mr. Davis : 

Q. What time of the day was the examination made? — A. I do not 
remember the exact time. 

Q. What was the custom? — A. Saturday afternoon was the usual 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 489 

time. There was no rigid time to examine; one time was as good as 
another. 

By Mr. FRYE : 
Q. Did you have soft or anthracite coal? — A. Botli kinds. We had 
soft coal which had been examined at Newport News, and which had 
been in the ship three months and was very stable. Commonly, we 
used all the coal from the forward bunkers lirst, because that brought 
the ship down in the head. At Key West they made us take in anthra- 
cite coal which had been there a long time and they wanted to get rid 
of it. We were quite as anxious, having got it aboard, to use it as they 
were, and I wanted to keep all my soft coal, as it was so stable, and 
that is the reason for retaining the coal in the forward bunkers. 

By Mr. Cullom : 
Q. What was your special reason for using the anthracite coal 1 ? — A. 
It was old, and consequently we could not use it to the best advantage. 
And the soft coal is better for steam purposes. Besides, the anthracite 
had been lying in the air for a long time. 

By Mr. Gray : 
Q. Have you ever made any examinations as to spontaneous combus- 
tion? — A. No, sir; but the English have gone into it with a great deal 
of particularity. Their tests, I believe, show that the gas works along 
through the layers of coal and through the coal dust, and works along 
until it strikes a draft of air, which fed it and ignited it, and in their 
experiments they found in that way, from a great number of cases, what 
to expect of it. Captain Wainwright, of the Maine, and formerly head 
of the office, said he never knew of spontaneous combustion Avithout 
heat in the first instance. 

By Mr. Clark: 
Q. Do you treat coal with water or anything of that kind when not 
using it? — A. No, sir. 

By Mr. Foraker : 

Q. State briefly the effect of the explosion upon the keel plates. — A. 
The keel plate was driven upward decidedly in one respect. That is 
given so clearly in the report that I regret to go into it. I left that to 
the court. It was suggested to me to make the drawing, and I declined 
because I did not wish to be in it any way. 

Q. Can you indicate in those drawings the one showing its existence 
above the deck 1 ? — A. That is supposed to represent there the keel plate. 
It is thrown up like that, I think just a few feet below the water line of 
the vessel. I do not like to go too far in this myself, because I might 
misjudge something of what the court said. I believe that was one of 
the strongest reasons for the assumption that that thing could not have 
been caused by an internal explosion. 

By Mr. Davis : / 

Q. How many feet was it blown up from its normal place"? — A. About 
30, 1 think, from where it would have rested in the mud in a normal 
condition. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. What is that drawing showing the vertical keel broken"? — A. 
Take this and pile it up like that. This edge and that edge come 
together. That also shows the rise where it is blown up. 



490 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. Showing the force came from below ? — A. I think that was the 
inference of the court, and would be of anybody. 

Q. Is that the bottom of the ship? — A. Yes, sir; that is called the 
keel plate. Instead of having a keel outside it is inside and perfectly 
flat. 

By Mr. Cullom: 

Q. Outside of what you have mentioned, were there any indications 
of a mine? — A. Not so far as I know, except indentations of the plate. 

Q. A hole in the mud? — A. Yes, sir; there was that. 

Q. No pieces of material in which that mine, if there was one, was 
incased? — A. Captain Converse says that would have been destroyed 
by the explosion. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. I saw a statement that some concrete or plaster had been thrown 
on the awnings or the upper deck of a steamer? — A. A large piece was 
thrown on the City of Washington, a large piece 2 or 3 feet in thick- 
ness. That might have come from the blower engines on the berth 
deck below the upper deck. That was screwed down in a bed of 
cement in the men's washroom. 

Q. Was there any cement in the bottom of the ship? — A. Yes, sir; 
all through the bilging there was cement, but my recollection is it was 
not demonstrated — there was no evidence to show conclusively that 
cement came from the bottom of the ship. 

Q. It might have come from either place? — A. Yes, sir. I only 
heard the chief engineer's statement, or rather the constructor, who 
thought that it came from the bottom of the ship. 

By Mr. Pryb: 

Q. There was a double bottom? — A. Yes, sir. 
By Mr. Lodge: 

Q. In the report there is a telegram addressed to Forsythe, Key 
West, etc.: "Many killed and wounded. Do not send war vessels if 
others available." Why, if I may ask, did you say that last? — A. In 
the first place, there was a great deal of excitement and I wanted to 
work along without men-of-war and to allay the excitement in the city; 
and in the next place, if there were any more mines I did not want any 
more war vessels blown up. 

Up to that time I had strongly recommended that the Indiana be 
sent there, just to show them that the Maine was not the only vessel 
in the Navy or the most powerful. After that time I had no more con- 
fidence in the people. Treachery had been shown us, and there was no 
special care for us; they had not attempted to protect us as we did with 
the Vizcaya in New York. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. You spoke of the reconcentrados getting the fish, etc. Did you 
see any of that class of people in Havana? — A. Oh, yes, a great many. 
I was invited to go to see them, but in my position as naval officer I 
did not care to take part in any political affairs. I desired to have 
things as peaceful and friendly as possible. I received and enter- 
tained out of my own pocket I suppose three or four hundred people 
on board the ship, but I never accepted any invitations. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. Did you occupy this same position all the while you were in 
Havana? — A. Yes, sir. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 491 

Q. Who stationed you at this place"? — A. When I came into Havana 
I struck well to the westward, so as to show myself well to the people. 
I hoisted the American ensign at the peak and the jack at the fore. 
That showed I was an American vessel and wanted to enter. They 
sent off a man — he was an official pilot — and I complimented him on 
his skill in entering, and I saw him at the office of the captain of the 
port, and I know he was the official pilot. 

Q. Was there any position from which you could have shelled Havana 
or Moro Castle as advantageously as this? — A. We could have shelled 
the town from any position. That is the position from wbich we could 
have brought our batteries to bear on the castle ; one broadside brought 
to bear on one, and the other broadside on the other. 

By Mr. Clark : 
Q. The committee was yesterday trying to get information as to the 
rnles, or laws, or regulations governing the keeping or disposal of high 
explosives in the city of Havana. Do you know anything of that? 
A. Not strictly, except just before I left there was an arrest made, or 
rather dynamite was seized opposite General Lee's consular office — so 
the Spanish papers stated — seized by the authorities; but I fancy that 
thing must be regulated very carefully where there is an insurrection, 
and where the custom-house laws are so very strict. General Lee 
could give you an opinion immediately on that point, but I take it for 
granted nothing could get in without permission of the authorities. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Some witnesses testified there was an explosion soipe time after, 
supposed to be fixed ammunition. — A. I did not notice the separate 
phenomena of explosion. 

Q. I mean an explosion after the first. — A. I know there were vari- 
ous explosions. We had some rockets in the signal room, etc., and there 
were some shooting stars and signals, and the pilot house was directly 
above the center of the explosion. 

Q. Was there any explosion from shells? — A. I have not heard ot 
any instance where heavy shell exploded. A piece of shell — a piece of 
0-inch shell was found on the City of Washington. I have not heard 
of any instance where 10-inch shell exploded in the air. In the pilot 
house, directly above the explosion, there were some G-pounder and 
1-pounder ammunition. That began to explode before we left the ship, 
and exploded until two o'clock that night. 

Q. Why was that"? — A. Because the ship was afire. It also continued 
after we left the ship. 

Q. If any magazine had exploded, would not that have caused the 
explosion of the detached ammunition 1 ? — A. It ought to have done so. 
There is much ammunition there now. 

Q. Unexploded? — A. Yes, sir; there was some ammunition in the 
handling room, in the loading room — 10-inch shell. We can not find 
any of these shells were hurled anywhere; we have no information of 
that. 

Q. Suppose the explosion had taken place in the magazine, every- 
thing in that magazine would have exploded ? — A. I should think so. 

Q. The force would have been confined, and the effect of the gases 
would have exploded everything? — A. Of course very curious things 
happen 

Q. It would have been very curious if that had not exploded? — A. 
Yes, sir. 



492 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Foraker: 
Q. You have no doubt your skip was destroyed by an explosion from 
the outside? — A. I have none whatever — none from the first minute. 



STATEMENT OF CAPT. ALBERT S. BARKER, U. S. N., March 31, 1898. 

Oapt. Albert S. Barker, U. S. N., sworn by the chairman. 
Examination by Senator Frye : 

Q. What is your name and profession? — A. Albert S. Barker, captain, 
United States Navy. 

Q. Are you familiar with the testimony in the Blaine case as dis- 
closed? — A. I have not read it, except portions that I have seen in the 
newspapers. 

Q. You have read all that has appeared in the papers? — A. I have 
read it, but not carefully. 

Q. Have you formed any opinion as to what caused the explosion? — 
A. I think from the report of the board, if they state the truth, as I 
have no doubt they do, that there was a mine under the keel of the 
Maine. 

Q. And a mine of great power or small? — A. Certainly of consider- 
able power, and if it was a small mine it must have been placed in the 
very best position to produce the best results that flames from the mine 
might have communicated with the forward magazines to assist in the 
explosion. 

Q. Have you formed an opinion as to whether or not that mine was 
placed there before the Maine was buoyed? — A. On no good evidence. 

Q. Have you an opinion? — A. My own opinion is that Havana Har- 
bor has been mined, but I have nothing to base it upon. 

Q. You have an opinion that Havana has been mined? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. If the mine was located there before the Maine was attached to 
the buoy, from what source would it necessarily have been exploded? — 
A. Ordinarily, if the mines were put down by the Government, they 
would have been exploded by Government officials. 

Q. It would have been exploded from the shore from an electric bat- 
tery? — A. Presumably. 

Q. Are such things in all these forts and fortifications in charge of 
officials? — A. So far as I know. In our own country they are. 

Q. Are you an expert in explosives? — A. Well, I do not know that I 
would care to call myself an expert in explosives. I was the first one 
who ever fired dynamite in shells in this country. 

Q. In your judgment, what kind of a mine would it be, if mine it 
was ? How many men would it take to handle it, etc. ? — A. It would be 
impossible to say. As Captain Sigsbee said, a mine could be towed out, 
as he explained, very easily. Again, if they were permanent mines, 
the chances are it would be a heavier mine, and would take a greater 
force to place it. 

Q. Commander Bradford testified they would run to from 500 to 1,000 
pounds to do such work as was done by this? — A. If the whole damage 
was caused by the mine, it certainly would. 

Q. In your opinion, was that mine located there before the ship 
moored, or are the probabilities that it was dropped there, as Captain 
Sigsbee testified it might have been, by some of these vessels? — A. It 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 493 

would be entirely guesswork, but I would suppose myself they would 
mine Havana Harbor. 

Q. Have you any doubt they have mined it? — A. I have nothing to 
base an opinion upon except on general principles — what we would do 
ourselves. 

Q. On general principles'? — A. I suppose they would mine the place. 

Q. Are you familiar with Havana Harbor? — A. I have been in there 
once only, twenty years ago. 

Q. The Spanish naval inquiry, as one strong reason why an acci- 
dent from the inside caused the explosion, declared there were no dead 
fish. What is your judgment about that ? — A. I should not think that 
of much value. I agree perfectly with that letter you read from Cap- 
tain Bradford. Only a few fish are killed in comparison with the num- 
ber stunned, provided there are a number around, and those fish 
stunned very soon recover their wits and swim off. 

Q. So you would not regard that as of any value? — A. No, sir. 

Q. Have you read the findings of the Spanish naval board? — A. 
No, sir ; have not seen them. 

By Mr. Gray : 

Q. Do you consider any hypothesis to account for this catastrophe 
more reasonable than that it was caused by a mine that had been placed 
there in conformity to a general system of mining, or at least placed 
there before the arrival of the Maine, and exploded by an electric cur- 
rent as in such cases is usual, either officially or by some person in his 
enthusiasm who got control of the place where it was? — A. I can con- 
ceive of no cause other than that you mention more reasonable than 
that, particularly as it is stated in the testimony, as I understand it, 
that the war heads of our own torpedoes were not shipped. That was 
the only thing I ever had any fear about. 

Q. What are those war heads? — A. They are of gun cotton, and are 
stowed down in the ship. When you prepare a torpedo, not for prac- 
tice but for actual work, these war heads are taken up and secured on 
the forward part of the torpedo. 

By Mr. MORGAN: 
Q. The other part of the torpedo is harmless until the war head is 
on ? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. FoRAKER : 
Q. The testimony shows they were not on ? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Turpib : 
Q. They are a sort of percussion cap? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. It is the explosive in the war head which causes the damage? — 
A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Mills : 
Q. What are the elements of gun cotton ? — A. It is the action of nitro- 
glycerine on cotton, on the fiber. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. Does it dissolve the fiber, or merely soak it ? — A. Dissolves it. 

By Mr. Foraker : 
Q. I understand you to state, from all the circumstances, it is accord- 
ing to your best judgment that it was exploded by a mine planted there 



494 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

before the Maine was anchored or buoyed there, and in the usual way 
such mines are operated, by an electric current, the battery for which 
was somewhere on the shore? — A. That is what I infer. 

Q. That is your better judgment, gathered from all the circum- 
stances? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Gray : 
Q. That is the most reasonable hypothesis? — A. To my mind. 
Q. Where are you stationed now? — A. At the Navy Department. 

By Mr. Mills : 

Q. How were these torpedoes to be used on the Maine? — A. Fired 
from tubes. 

Q. How far can you send them? — A. At the rate of 20 or 30 miles 
for 400 yards, and then 600 or 800 yards farther. 

Q. And then if they do not hit anything they are lost? — A. Yes, sir; 
they lose their speed and fall into the sea. 

Q. Are our war vessels fitted so? — A. Yes, sir; most of the larger 
vessels, the cruisers. 

Q. In close quarters they are pretty dangerous? — A. Yes, sir; you 
do not want to get within 400 j^ardSo 



STATEMENT OF ADMXKAL JOHtf IRWIN, U. S. H., April 2, 1898. 

Admiral John Irwin, IT. S. 1ST., sworn by Senator Frye: 
Examination by Senator Frye : 

Q. What is your full name and profession ? — A. John Irwin; admiral, 
United States Navy. 

Q. Have you had considerable experience with torpedoes ? —A. I have. 

Q. Have yon at any time been in the harbor of Havana? — A. I am 
a pilot in the harbor of Havana. I have been there hundreds of times, 
I should say; was there a great deal while I was employed in assisting 
in laying the West India cable system, and before that I was there in 
the times of Fulton, in the old filibustering days, when those expedi- 
tions were fitting out for Nicaragua. During a period of four years, from 
1867 to 1871, 1 never took on a pilot there. The ship I commanded was 
the only American war vessel allowed to go in, night or day, ad libitum. 
That was because we were in the cable business. 

Q. Were you there during the last rebellion? — A. Three years of the 
last rebellion, from when it began in 1868 to 1871. 

Q. With your ship? — A. Yes, sir; with two different ships. 

Q. Were you attached to this same buoy to which the Maine was? — 
A. I was anchored at the buoy No. 4, off the Machina Navy-Yard, and 
from the description of the position assumed by the Maine shown me 
on the chart, and from the middle grounds on the shoals just beyond 
it, I take it that buoy was in the same position of my buoy. 

Q. What was the disposition of the people on shore toward your 
ship at that time — the Spaniards? — A. Bitterly hostile at all times. 

Q. Did they exhibit that hostility actively on shore at that time? — 
A. They exhibited it actively, constantly. Going in and out, when we 
would pass the slopes leading down from the Cabanas fortress and the 
Morro Gastle, and the battery on the port hand coming out, the Span- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 495 

ish soldiers and volunteers at different times, sometimes the volunteers 
and at others the regulars were the sole garrison, would come down 
and use the most indecent gestures to us and curse us in Spanish, and 
taunt us in every conceivable way. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. That was during the former war? — A. In 1808, 1809, and 1870. 
By Mr. Frte : 

Q. Did they fire at you any time on shore? — A. I was on shore on 
Christmas night, 1808, with Gen. William F. Smith, president of the 
cable company I was aiding; Sir Charles Bright, the great electrician, 
who had the contract for laying this cable, and Mr. John Nininger, the 
rich European banker, vice president of the company. AYe had taken 
dinner at the cafe right opposite the opera house, and had left the cafe 
and adjourned to our rooms near the Machina on account of the unu- 
sually severe cold of that night, the thermometer going down to 50, 
something unknown in Havana. 

On the night we left one of my officers who had been in the cafe 
reported to me the volunteers had fired two volleys, one into the lower 
part, the other into the billiard room above, at one of the tables of 
which Lieutenant (now Commander) Clover was playing billiards. A 
number of persons were killed and wounded, among others Mr. Charles 
Kohler; and I was told he was laughing, telling a funny yarn, and he 
was shot dead, his head falling in his plate. That cafe was the resort of 
Americans very largely, Havana being then a health and winter resort, 
and thousands of Americans going every winter. We could conceive 
of the animosity being intended for any other parties, as no other for- 
eigners were ever insulted to our knowledge, and the impression con- 
veyed was. that these volleys were fired with the deliberate intention of 
assaulting Americans. 

Q. Have you read the testimony taken with regard to the destruc- 
tion of the Maine? — A. I have read all the expert testimony. 

Q. You have read the testimony? — A. Yes; the testimony of the 
subordinates before the court I simply glanced at, but the expert testi- 
mony I studied very carefully. 

Q. Have you formed an opinion? — A. I have a very positive opinion. 

Q. What is it? — A. The destruction of the Maine was caused by the 
explosion of a submarine mine. 

Q. What do you mean by " a submarine mine?" — A. Submarine 
mines are of two characters, mines being of various shapes, some of 
them mushrooms. One is a mine that is anchored, and to the anchor 
a buoy would be attached. They are attached mushroom shape; that 
is, the insulated wire attachment communicating with some safe mag- 
azine located within view of it, so that it could be exploded at the will 
of the operator by an electric instrument. 

Q. Either on shore or on board a Spanish ship? — A. Yes, sir. If it 
nad been originally laid to communicate with a magazine on shore, and 
then they had changed their minds, and wished to use it from a ship, 
say the Alfonso, it would be a very simple operation to detach the cable 
from the shore magazine and convey the end surreptitiously or any way 
to the Alfonso or any other ship. Anyone versed in handling, and 
knowing the ground, would have no difficulty. Or the cable might 
have been tapped from any ship and the splice made. It could have 
been made in the space of half an hour under cover of darkness with- 
out anyone having any knowledge of it except the parties implicated. 



496 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. If it appeared by the testimony that this ship had been swinging 
as ships always do at the buoy, and that, for the first time since her arri- 
val, she had reached the position where she was blown up, what would 
be your judgment, that the torpedo was placed there in advance? — A. 
Decidedly so. 

Q. Would it be difficult for people on shore at that time of night to 
know the exact location of that ship, and that she was over the mine? — 
A. None at all. The torpedo mines are planted at exactly known points, 
and those points determined by the most accurate triangulation. The 
operator whose duty it was to explode the mine would have to be an 
expert, have his map before him, and be able by his observations to locate 
the position of the ship within a few feet, or else the mine would be of 
no value, it it was simply guesswork. 

I know that in the mapped-out preparation for the defense of our own 
harbors the positions of our own mines are determined by triangulation 
within two or three feet, and very po-sibly exactly determined. It is a 
very simple problem in surveying to do so. 

Q. You having been in Havana in times oi serious trouble, in the 
conditions existing in Havana now, in your judgment would it be possi- 
ble for any private individuals to obtain the necessary combustible 
materials for this mine'?— A. In my judgment it would be impossible. 
The military power is absolute; the people are held in a grip of iron; 
they have their military force, their police force, and everyone known 
to have been there — if a Cuban ventures outside his house he takes 
his life in his hand. 

Q. Would not the surveillance be exceedingly careful when the fact 
was known that there must have been in Havana many Cubans who 
would have delighted to have blown up the Span ish ships 'i — A. Unques- 
tionably so; there is no doubt about that. We know from various 
accounts received from Havana that, on a small scale, the Cubans have 
repeatedly exploded what are known as dynamite bombs in various 
locations around Havana, and are blowing up railway bridges and 
obstructing the Spaniards constantly, but that is a different matter 
from having access to the harbor and being able to plant a mine of that 
character. 

Q. What experience have you had with torpedoes yourself? — A. Com- 
mencing the 13th of April, 1865, when the news was received in Mobile 
of General Lee's surrender, hostilities ceased, and it was necessary for 
our fleet to enter the harbor of Mobile itself, we being in the outer har- 
bor below Dog River Bar. Rear- Admiral Thatcher placed me in com- 
mand of a division and instructed me to remove all the torpedoes in 
Mobile Bay and to blow up the obstructions to Dog River Bar, and 
after that was done I piloted the fleet through, carried them in safety 
to Mobile. In doing that work I raised some 400 torpedoes at very 
great risks in shallow water. During the operations we lost altogether 
some seven vessels, and I became very familiar with those torpedoes. 

At first we used to destroy them by boring auger holes through and 
sousing them with water, but afterwards, having found in the naval 
arsenal at Mobile a number of safety caps that screwed on the head 
and rendered them innocuous, I saved those torpedoes and used them 
in blowing up obstructions, using the electric fuse. We also procured 
from the same naval arsenal in Mobile a number of submarine mines 
that had been prepared for use, all of which I employed in blowing up 
the main obstruction. This obstruction was about 240 feet in length, 
40 feet beam, and 24 feet deep, built of 24-inch timber, and filled in 
with brick and stone, all of which we blew up. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 497 

In conducting those operations I had abundant opportunity to observe 
the effect of submarine mines and torpedoes, and I had also closely 
observed the effect of these torpedoes on our vessels that were blown 
up. That work lasted some three or four weeks, and after that, having 
become interested in the subject and being a part of my profession, I 
have naturally been a close student ever since. 

Q. I call your attention to what was testified to by the people on the 
City of Washington, that there were two explosions. What have you 
to say to that? — A. It struck me, and Admiral Matthews, who was our 
first officer in charge of the torpedo school at Newport, also, that it 
was somewhat strange that it was not generally known that the explo- 
sion of a torpedo or submarine mine is always a double explosion. 
There are two reports ; the first report, I take it, from the earth shock or 
earth sound wave, if I may so describe it, which is followed by the blast, 
which makes the latter explosion on the gases reaching the open air, 
as of the powder coming from the muzzle of a gun. 

When you are near any such explosion the difference in sound could 
hardly be measured by time, but it is palpable to the trained ear. It 
is about like the sound in firing a gun that strikes the ear of the officer 
firing, the sound of the explosion of the cap, followed almost instanta- 
neously by the explosion from the muzzle. I give that as an illustra- 
tion to show you how short a space there is, but that space is patent to 
the sensitive drum of the ear; you know it instinctively. Admiral 
Matthews, having been in charge of a torpedo school, said that was his 
experience lasting over a series of years. 

Q. So, from a submarine mine, you would' expect the report to be as 
in this case? — A. Precisely. 

Q. Captain Sigsbee does not mention it"? — A. I can readily under- 
stand that. Captain Sigsbee was in his cabin writing home. This 
thing was so sudden and a terrific shock, taking him exceedingly by 
surprise, and the vibration on board the ship from this terrible upheaval 
would probably blend the sounds so together that he would not notice 
the difference. There was a rupture and tearing of the whole fabric, and 
together with the shock of surprise and the uplifting of the ship and 
the general crash of the whole fabric, I do not wonder that Captain 
Sigsbee was unable to distinguish the double report. 

Q. I suppose it does not surprise you that the people on the City of 
Washington were able to distinguish them'? — A. Not at all. They were 
in a different case; they were farther away. Captain Sigsbee was so 
exceedingly close to the explosion that the double sound probably 
merged into one; that is, the conveyance of the sound wave in the air 
and the ground shock were to his ear, together with the other sounds, 
simultaneous. 

Q. If the ship was blown up from the shore or from the Spanish ship, 
must it not have been done by some Spanish official'? — A. Unquestion- 
ably. 

Q. Would anybody else, any ordinary people around the city, have 
access to the instrument from which a submarine mine would be dis- 
charged? — A. I should think that common prudence would impel the 
Spanish to guard a magazine containing an instrument used for explod- 
ing a mine very carefully in their own selfish interests. It might be 
possible that one of their own ships would drift over it, and if it had 
been in the power of a hostile Cuban to touch it off he would certainly 
do so. 

Q. So that, if discharged from ship or shore, it was discharged by a 
Spanish official 1 ? — A. Unquestionably. 
32 



498 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Q. In the case of that ship lying over that submarine mine with her 
full magazines, state whether or not it would have been a reasonable 
supposition on the part of whoever exploded the mine that there would 
be no one left to tell the story at all? — A. It would be quite reasonable 
to expect that, supposing, as we have a right to suppose in our assump- 
tion, that this mine was touched off by a Spanish official, that this 
official would be an expert, naval or military — and the various bureaus 
of military and naval intelligence have, to my knowledge, complete 
plans of all great structures afloat. We have, I know, because I have 
been furnished them myself. 

The Spanish have had their naval attache here, who has, no doubt, 
been supplied with the same information. We have an attache at the 
Court of Madrid, endeavoring to get all the information there— Lieuten- 
ant Dyer. Assuming that the person who touched off that mine was 
either a naval or military officer, he would want to place his mine and 
cause the explosion where it would do the utmost amount of damage, 
and from the testimony adduced that explosion occurred in the vicin- 
ity of the forward magazines in the vessel. They could not cover the 
whole ground with one mine. The after and forward magazines being 
so far apart, they could not cover both with one mine. 

This mine was exploded very near one of the magazines, and the force 
of that explosion passed directly through some of those magazines. 
The effect of such a blast, destroying a vast amount of steel bulkheads 
and frames and beams and other structures of steel, would send this 
hurtling mass grinding through a magazine, through the powder, the 
fragments impinging one upon another; and anyone who has seen the 
foot of a horse striking sparks from a piece of Belgian pavement at 
night can imagine the number of sparks and can also imagine the heat 
evolved by these steel fragments driven through a mass of powder, a 
sufficient amount of heat to explode powder. In my judgment that is 
the way it was done, and that is the way and result I would expect to 
follow if I intended to blow up the magazine of a ship. I would intend 
to blow not only the bottom of the ship but the magazine. 

Q. Suppose the main magazine had blown up? — A. If the main maga- 
zine had blown up, as we have the right to suppose would be the case, 
there would be no one to tell the story. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. You mean the forward magazine 1 ? — A„ I am satisfied the heavy 
charges did not explode. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. If they had exploded, they would have blown up everyone on 
board? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. You speak of the forward magazines? — A. If they could have 
located the mine under the after magazine, the ship would have been 
utterly destroyed. There were stored the gun cotton and the war 
heads for the torpedoes, and the heavy ammunition — everything was 
stored there. But they were 120 feet away from the scene of the 
explosion and are intact— were not disturbed. 

By Mr. Frye : 

Q. You have read the testimony and examined the plates ? — A. I 
have. 

Q. Does that reading leave any doubt in your mind as to the fact that 
the ship was blown up by an external submarine mine? — A. It leaves 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 499 

no doubt, and removes any doubt I might have entertained, as being 
absolutely impossible. Assuming we would like to go to work to prove 
that there was an internal explosion, this evidence of the testimony and 
these drawings refute that absolutely and decidedly, for the reason — 
we will go back to our schoolboy days, to Marryat's law — gases and 
fluids have the property of expanding equally in all directions. The 
force would be lateral, upward, and downward, and equally strong, the 
bottom, sides, and decks blown out and uplifted, a general clearance 
of everything. 

The drawings accompanying this report show conclusively the tre- 
mendous effect caused by an explosion underneath, which lifted the 
body of the ship and plunged the bow and ram down in the mud, and 
it was such a tremendous power that it has left that portion of the ship 
in the same position now, with a portion of the bottom plating showing 
the germicide paint — the green paint — not used anywhere else except 
for antifouling purpose, 4 feet above the water. 

By Mr. Davis : 
Q. Hoav far above its normal position? — A. Thirty-six feet. Now, I 
suppose— at least I am quite sure — there is not a naval expert in the 
world who would view those drawings who would give any other testi- 
mony; i can not imagine anyone who has had any experience at all 
giving any other. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Is that green paint used on any other portion of the ship? — A. It 
is used nowhere else. 

Q. It is a green paint? — A. Yes, sir; it is a germicide paint, and is 
poisonous. 

By Mr. Davis: 

Q. Is it used anywhere except on the bottom? — A. Nowhere else. 
By Mr. Turpie : 

Q. The outside of the bottom? — A. Yes, sir; nowhere else. 
By Mr. Frye: 

Q. That Spanish naval board which made a report in regard to this 
explosion and found it was caused by an accident inside could not have 
made any reasonable examination? — A. It is quite possible the Spanish 
divers, and also the Spanish officials in charge of those divers, may 
have made what they consider an examination. It is also quite possi- 
ble that not one of them was an expert; Lad ever handled an explosive, 
or knew anything whatever about the action of high exjdosive mines. 

Q. They And this, as they say, one important fact, that there w r ere 
no dead fish next day. — A. That does not surprise me. A boy can 
explode a little dynamite on the surface of the water and stir up quite 
a number of dead fish if there are any fish there; and again, during my 
work in Mobile Bay, and it is a fine fish-producing water, in three or 
four weeks' work I never saw one dead fish. I was expecting to see 
them, but I did not. I have myself, as president of the board of inspec- 
tion, in California, inspecting ships fitting out and returning from a 
cruise for several years, and the Mare Island Straits abounds in fish, 
and one of our drills is to fire our bomb torpedoes somewhat below the 
surface of the water to see whether the men were proficient in that sort 
of work, and I have had occasion to fire a great many torpedoes in those 
waters, and I never saw a dead fish in those waters while I was there. 



500 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

By Mr. Morgan : 
Q. About how many torpedoes and mines did you explode in Mobile 
Bay? — A. We were sending down these mines and exploding them as 
rapidly as we could fill and plant them; I suppose averaged one in 
every half hour, and that extended over a period of three weeks. 

By Mr. DAVIS : 
Q. Over a large area? — A. No; we were blowing up the main 
obstruction. 

By Mr. Frye : 

Q. You are familiar with the waters of Havana Harbor and have 
been there a long time. Are there many fish there? — A. I saw very 
few there. I saw a few surface fish. The fishing to supply Havana is 
all done outside the harbor. Boats go outside in the morning and 
return in the evening for the fish market. I have seen what I took to 
be the small fish that had been brought in, spawned there probably. 

Q. Is the water very foul ? — A. The water is very foul. The accumu- 
lated bilgewater of sugar ships for a century or so, like molasses, and 
the outflow of the scouring of Havana gutters all pours into the har- 
bor, all the filth and offal from the fish markets and the beef market, 
and so on — all refuse is dumped there. 

Q. What is the tide there? — A. It is what is known as a swelling 
and ebbing tide. There is a tidal rise and fall, with a light surface 
current which runs in in moderate force and reflows. 

Q. Every six hours? — A. Ebb and flow enough to swing ships that 
would swing at the buoys. 

Q. Do you know the difference between the high and low water? — 
A. Two or three feet; enough to make quite a surface current. 

Q. If this explosion had taken place at 9.30 in the evening and the 
waters not been inspected until the next day, even if there had been 
any fish killed by the explosion would you have expected to find 
them? — A. There was abundant time for the fish to flow from the har- 
bor, or up and be left stranded by the falling tide. That is a great 
harbor for saluting with very heavy guns, and sometimes if a poor 
unfortunate fish happens to be below the muzzle of a gun he will turn 
up. They are saluting there all the time, and I never saw any dead 
fish lying around. 

Q. You think there is nothing in that dead fish Spanish evidence? — 
A. I do not. I saw the departure of a Captain-General from the port 
of Havana early in I860 or late in 1868, and they had quite a large 
Spanish fleet there. He was quite a popular man, and from the fleet 
and from the forts began a system of saluting which was equivalent to 
a bombardment in volume of explosion, to do honor to this big man of 
theirs. The concussion of that saluting was something terrific. We 
joined in as a matter of course, and there were no dead fish in that 
case, at least none ever noticed. 

By Mr. Morgan : 

Q. Have you been to Puerto Rico? — A. I have. 

Q. I wish you would describe the bay there, at San Juan, I believe? — 
A. It is a second Havana, on a smaller scale, with powerful fortifica- 
tions of the old type defending it. It is a walled city and it has a deep 
harbor that would afford refuge for the largest battle ships in the world. 

Q. How is the anchorage in the bay? — A. Very good and perfectly 
secure. It is considered a capital hurricane harbor, to use a West 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 501 

Indian term. That is, that ships with three or four anchors down could 
ride out a hurricane there. 

Q. Is the bay commodious? — A. It is not as large as Havana, but it 
is large enough for quite a fleet, and being landlocked the ships could 
anchor with a small scope of chain, giving room for a large navy. 

Q. Can the bay be shelled? — A. Yes, sir; from the entrance and 
over the town. Those old fortifications were magnificent in their day, 
and cost so much that there is an old story of the King of Spain with 
his telescope. On one occasion one of the Spanish kings was looking 
from his palace with a large telescope. The captains-general and the 
officials of those days were about as now, exceedingly corrupt. 

They had charged a great many millions for the building of the 
defenses of St. Johns, Puerto Eico, while the work was all done by Carib 
labor under the lash and did not cost anything. One of the courtiers 
asked him, "Your Majesty, what interests you so much?" He said, 
" I am looking to see the golden walls of St. Johns. They have charged 
a hundred millions for them, and I thought they must be in sight 
from here." These golden walls were magnificent pieces of masonry, 
and against the 12 and 18 pounders and powder of that day they were 
impregnable, but as against the 12 and 13 inch guns of the Indiana 
and the Massachusetts they are of no more value than a wooden fence. 

By Mr. Frye : 
Q. Do you know whether they have recently put in any guns there? — 
A. I do not know, except from report, but I am quite sure that our mili- 
tary bureau, or naval bureau, of intelligence has positive information 
in regard to every gun there. 

By Mr. MORGAN : 

Q. I want to ask you about the Bay of St. Thomas? — A. That is 
another magnificent harbor. 

Q. Protected by defenses? — A. Very small defense. The Danes have 
had no war, except their little war when Moltke overwhelmed them and 
took Holsteiu. They have some small, old-fashioned forts, but with bat- 
teries that could be readily constructed, as Beauregard did, building 
them of sand, the best of all forts could be put up very readily. 

Q. Plenty of sand there? — A. Plenty of material. General Gilmore 
said as a result of his operations, beginning with Pulaski and ending 
with Morris Island, that if he were ordered to build a fort in New 
Hampshire, if there were no sand there and none within 200 miles, he 
would haul it there in wagons, as being the only material which can 
stand pounding, as shown by the terrific pounding that Morris Island 
was submitted to and withstood until the crest of the parapet was used 
up. It was marvelous. What few little holes were made during the day 
were filled up with sano" bags during the night, and they were as good, 
as ever the next day. 

Q. How wide is the bar exit into the sea? — A. There is no bar. There 
is no river outflow. It is a very open, deep-water harbor. Any ship 
can go in day or night. There is no river to cause a bar. The anchor- 
age is good, and in the harbor they have a floating dock, and there are 
sites for good docks if anyone chose to put them up, perfectly secure. 
It could be made a Gibraltar, the facilities for defending it are so great. 

Q. What is the important command of that situation as a place ot 
military or naval strategy? — A. If it belonged to a country having 
command of the sea it completes its control of the whole West India 
system, including the Isthmus. It is on the direct route of communi- 
cation. The French, English, and German lines of commerce all pass 



502 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

there, and it was the steamship depot for a number of years, being a 
free port, having great facilities for coaling and all that. 

Q. What is your opinion of its importance as a location for a coaling 
station ? — A. It is unsurpassed. I was very much interested in know- 
ing the harbor and the people so well at the time we were negotiating 
for the purchase of the islands originally, St. John, St. Thomas, and 
Santa Cruz, and I made a close study of it. Of course from my ideas 
as a military man I considered it a military necessity that we should 
have it. I was looking forward to the possibility of an Isthmian canal 
at some time in the future. There is always a great stock of the best 
kind of coal, Cardiff coal, English coal, there. 

Q. In times of peace do you consider that a coaling station there 
would be of great advantage to commerce as well as in times of war to 
war ships'? — A. Unquestionably. 

Q. If you were in command of a fleet and required to be stationed off 
or near the Dry Tortugas or Key West, to what points would you look 
for your supply of coal? — A. I would look, as long as it remained in 
our control — we get our supplies from the northern ports, Mobile and 
the Mississippi Valley. 

Q. In time of war would not your coal fleet be very much exposed 
coming down the coast to find a war fleet at Key West or Dry Tortu- 
gas? — A. They would be very much exposed if you were at war with a 
nation having a superior naval force. As General Grant well exj)ressed 
it, the objective point of an enemy is its main army. In a naval war 
our objective point would be the naval fleet of Spain, which is now con- 
centrated at St. Johns, Puerto Kico. If you strike that fleet and strike 
it successfully, Spain is dead so far as naval operations are concerned, 
and Spain being dead the coal fleet is safe. You deal her such a blow 
and she can never recover from it. If she selects Havana, very well; 
we will strike her there, and if she occupies Puerto Rico, strike her there 
and take it away. 

Q. In that event, how far would you be from your coal supply at Key 
West or Tortugas? — A. If I strike for Puerto Rico I have my secondary 
supply of coal at St. Thomas. 

Q. In the absence of that supply, if coal were contraband of war, 
where would be your base of supply, at Key West or Tortugas? — A. If 
I had any doubt of being able to procure coal in the friendly harbor of 
St. Thomas I would carry my coal with me, steam colliers accompany- 
ing the fleet. 1 would take St. Johns and coal comfortably inside the 
harbor. I am giving what I firmly believe to be in our power to do if 
our fleet assembles and if we concentrate and strike such a blow. It is 
feasible and entirely practicable. I could take the Vesuvius, and after 
silencing the guns of the fort send half a dozen of those terrible projec- 
tiles from her guns into the harbor, and she would blow up every ship 
in that harbor. 

Q. How far is it by a proper sailing line for a fleet from Key West to 
St. Johns, Porto Rico ? — A. I have not a chart, but I think about 900 
miles. 

Q. So that if you had possession of St. Thomas you would have a 
great advantage in coaling your fleet over the situation in case you had 
to get your supply from Key West? — A. You are so near to Porto Rico 
from St. Thomas that from the elevation above St. Thomas you can 
view the eastward end of the island. 

By Mr. Foraker: 
Q. Assuming that at the time of the explosion of the Maine the 
electric lights on shore in the city of Havana were extinguished, to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 503 

what would you attribute that result, judging from your knowledge ot 
how submarine mines are arranged for explosion, and basing your 
opinion on all the knowledge you have of such matters and the circum- 
stances attending this particular explosion"? — A. In order that this 
mine should have any effect on the Havana electric light system, it 
must have been connected with one of its switch boards. The explosion 
of the mine disrupting the cable and making ground connection would 
release the full electric current, taking it to earth. In the system con- 
nected with that, all the lights would immediately go out. 

Q. Would you, or would you not, then be of the opinion that the fact 
that the electric lights on shore were extinguished simultaneously 
with the explosion indicate that there was a connection between the 
submarine mine and the lights on shore? — A. That might have been. 

By Mr. Turpie : 

Q. Judging from your experience in torpedo explosions, what would 
be the effect upon the water were a mine of the size and weight compe- 
tent to make this destruction of the Maine lighted and exploded under a 
vessel of the size of the Maine, with metallic bottom? Would it be a 
disturbance in the nature of a wave or would it throw up the water in 
spouts? — A. I am very glad you asked that question. I had intended 
to say something about that, but had become interested in other mat- 
ters and forgot it. The effect of the explosion of a mine in regard to 
the column of water thrown up depends, curiously enough, upon its 
depth from the surface. 

The explosion of a mine near the surface — 3 or 4 or 6 feet below the 
surface — will throw up a terrific column of water. The explosion of a 
mine at a depth of 30 feet would hardly make an ebullition, even when 
there is nothing on the surface. That was the case in removing the 
reefs at Hell Gate and elsewhere, where there were terrific explosions. 
Admiral Matthews's attention was called to this fact early in the day, 
and mine also. I confess it surprised me. I had supposed that the 
deeper a torpedo, the deeper and heavier it was tamped, the deeper 
and heavier would be the effect, and I was astonished to find that it 
was not so. 

In the shallow water in Mobile Bay I could not go very deej), the 
deepest I could go was 15 feet. When I got below 4, or 5, or 6 feet, 
the smaller the water column thrown up, and Admiral Matthews will 
testify that at 30, or 35, or 40 feet, hardly a disturbance on the sur 
face, even to bubbling. 



STATEMENT OF HQNORE FRANCOIS LAINE, APRIL 7, 1898. 

Honore FRANgois Laine, being duly sworn, testified as follows : 

Senator Gray. Mr. Laine, you were in Havana on the night of the 
disaster to the United States battle ship Maine f 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. Please state how long you had been there and what 
was your occupation. 

Mr. Laine. I arrived in Havana on the 1st of January of this year at 
6 o'clock in the morning, on the steamship Olivette, as correspondent of 
the New York Sun, and I was in that capacity in Havana until the 4th 
of March, when I was expelled by the Spanish authorities, who have 
never notified me why they have done so. 



504 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Senator Gray. You bad been a resident of Havana before tbat time, 
bad you not? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; I was born in Cuba and I lived in Cuba until 
I was 10 years old. 

Senator Gray. Wbo was your father? 

Mr. Laine. Dainaco Laine. 

Senator Gray. A planter? 

Mr. Laine. A planter in tbe Province of Matanzas. 

Senator Lodge. And your niotber was an American? 

Mr. Laine. My mother was an American, from Wilmington, Del. 

Senator Gray. What was ber name, please? 

Mr. Laine. Mary Garesche. 

Senator Gray. Tbe family bad lived in Wilmington before? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; tbe Du Pont Powder Works used to belong to 
them. They had powder works. 

Senator Lodge. Your father was a French citizen? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Lodge. You were a French citizen? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. When I was 10 years old they sent me to 
Georgetown College. Then I studied veterinary medicine in New 
York. 

Senator Lodge. Veterinary surgery? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; veterinary surgery. When I was 19 years old 
I graduated, March 4, 1885. I studied that as a sort of sport. I am 
very fond of horses and thought it best to study that. As to my work 
in Cuba, I own patents in machinery down there — sugar machinery 
patents. That was my business, and for tbat reason 1 traveled all 
over the Island of Cuba, and on the whole island. When the war broke 
out, not having anything to do, I accepted the position of correspondent 
of the New York Sun. 

Senator Gray. You are familiar with Cuba and with the Spanish 
language ? 

Mr. Laine. Oh, yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. And French well as English ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; French. 

Senator Gray. Now, please recur to the night of the explosion. 
Where were you at the time the explosion occurred? 

Mr. Laine. The American correspondents at Havana at that time 
bad the habit of congregating in the park known as Isabel la Cotolica, 
in front of the Hotel Inglaterra. We used to sit down there and talk 
and exchange notes. That night I had just returned from tbe Captain - 
General's palace, the censor's office, and was sitting in the park with 
some friends when we saw the skies get red, and two or three seconds 
afterwards we beard a terrific detonation. We took a cab and drove 
down Obispo street to the wharf of Caballeria. 

Senator Gray. Will you be good enough to indicate on this map 
[exhibiting] by across with a pencil where you were sitting in the park? 

Mr. Laine [indicating]. Eight here, sir. Here is the Hotel Ingle- 
terra [indicating]. From there we took a cab and came down this street 
[indicating 1. There is the Captain -General's palace [indicating]. The 
cab stopped there [indicating]. This is a gate [indicating]. 

Senator Foraker. The cab stopped where? 

Mr. Laine. At the entrance of the wharf of Caballeria. 

Senator Foraker. At the water? 

Senator Gray. On the water front? 

Mr. Laine. On the water front. Then we passed through the iron 
door there [indicating] and we were on the wharves. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 505 

Senator Foraker. Did you leave your cab there? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, we paid the mau and left the carriage there. Eight 
at the entrance of it there is a large electric pole, what you call 

Senator Foraker. A lamp ? 

Mr. Laine. An arc light. That was extinguished. 

Senator Foraker. The light was extinguished? 

Mr. Laine. The light was extinguished. 

Senator Foraker. Then what did you do after leaving your carriage? 

Mr. Laine. Then we got on the wharf, on the water side. 

Senator Gray. On the water side? 

Mr. Laine. On the water side. There are about 25 or 30 feet, you 
know. You can walk all around the wharves. These are on the wharves 
[indicating! and you go inside. There are long wharves. 

Senator Gray. All along the water front? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir ; all along the water front. We got to the water 
front. I saw by the light that it was the Maine that had been blown up. 

Senator Gray. By what light? 

Mr. Laine. By the light of the Maine. She was burning already ; 
at least, something was burning on the deck that showed me her mast. 
I could see by that that it was the Maine. 

Senator Gray. Did you notice any other electric lights extinguished 
than the one at the entrance? 

Mr. Laine. Every one of them all along here [indicating] was 
extinguished. 

Senator Foraker. Please state what you did after you left your 
carriage? 

Mr. Laine. After I left my carriage I saw everybody running in this 
direction [indicating]. 

Senator Foraker. In what direction? 

Mr. Laine. In the direction of the machina. 

Senator Daniel. What is the machina? 

Mr. Laine. The machina is big shears that they have. 

Senator Lodge. A great pair of tongs for the purpose of lifting masts 
out of vessels. 

Senator Foraker. How many squares were there from where you 
left your carriage to the machina? 

Mr. Laine. About six squares. 

Senator Gray. After you entered the iron gate you turned to your 
right and went along the water front? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. To the machina? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. And that was toward the Maine? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; it was toward the Maine. 

Senator Lodge. That is where the admiral's house is [indicating] ? 

Mr. Laine. It is where the admiral's house is. 

Senator Gray. You say when you first entered the gate there was a 
tall iron pole that had an electric light on it which had been extinguished? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. There are several around here; but this one 
was distinguished because it was right in the center here [indicating], 
and I had it in front of me. It was so dark that I noticed it. 

Senator Gray. Were those around it extinguished ? 

Mr. Laine. All were extinguished around there. 

Senator Gray. Were there a number of electric-light poles along the 
water front that you traversed on your way to the machina? 



506 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Laine. I will mark them here [indicating]. There are about 
twelve all along' here. 

Senator Gray. On the road you traveled? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. Were they all extinguished? 

Mr. Laine. They were all extinguished. The wharf was very dark. 

Senator Gray. Is this part of the city [indicating] lighted largely 
by electricity ? 

Mr. Laine. Only on the wharves, sir. 

Senator Gray. What is the lighting here [indicating]? 

Mr. Laine. Gas. 

Senator Gray. Was that extinguished? 

Mr. Laine. I did not notice that. My attention was not turned that 
way. 

Senator Foraker. Did you see any electric lights burning at all 
along the wharves? 

Mr. Laine. No, sir. 

Senator Gray. They were all out? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Were you ever down there at any other time in 
the night time? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Did you ever see them out before? 

Mr. Laine. jSTo, sir; I never did. The wharves are always lit up at 
night, because goods are kept down there and they have to be well 
watched. 

Senator Foraker. Was this the first tiw>e you ever saw them out? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; it was the first tij*>" 

Senator Foraker. In the nighttime? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. Did you hear any remark at that time or the next 
day about the extinguishment of the electric lights at the time of the 
explosion ? 

Mr. Laine. I believe the papers mentioned that fact the next day, 
but mentioned it as the effect of the big explosion. I remember read- 
ing also that in a cafe near by $3,000 worth of damage had been done 
by the breaking of glass and such things. But l am going to get those 
Spanish papers and try to send them to you. 

Senator Lodge. Do you know whether the gas lights went out? 

Mr. Laine. I do not, sir. 

Senator Lodge. You have no reason to suppose that they did? 

Mr. Laine. I could not tell you that, sir. When I got down to the 
wharf my main idea was to look toward the Maine and get a boat to go 
there. I paid no attention to the city or anything. But I saw this arc 
light fluttering; I can remember that distinctly. 

Senator Gray. You saw it fluttering? 

Mr. Laine. You know when an electric light goes out the carbon 
remains for some time red hot. I just saw that and that made the 
whole thing look dark. Then that crowd of excited Spaniards halloo- 
ing, and all that, impressed me with the darkness of the place. 

Senator Lodge. You drove down Obispo street, which is lighted by 
gas? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; it is lighted by gas. 

Senator Lodge. In driving down that street, did yon notice whether 
the lights were out? 

Mr. Laine. I did not. I could not tell you. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 507 

Senator Lodge. If they had been out, would you have beeu likely to 
have noticed it? 

Mr. Laine. Yes; I think if they had all gone out I certainly would 
have noticed it. 



ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF H0N0RE FRANCOIS LAINE, APRIL 7, 

1898. 

Honore Francois Laine, having been previously sworn, further 
testified as follows : 

The Chairman (Senator Davis). Mr. Laine, you are a native of Cuba? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. What is your age? 

Mr. Laine. Thirty-three. 

The Chairman. Your father is a French subject? 

Mr. Laine. A French citizen, sir. 

The Chairman. You were educated in this country? 

Mr. Laine. In this country. 

The Chairman. Where? 

Mr. Laine. At Georgetown College and Philadelphia. 

The Chairman. What is your profession? 

Mr. Laine. I have studied veterinary medicine, but my profession in 
Cuba — I own patents in connection with sugar machinery, sugar-making 
establishments there. 

The Chairman. Is your father a planter? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. How far from Havana? 

Mr. Laine. Ninety miles. 

The Chairman. What became of his plantation? 

Mr. Laine. It has been burned. 

The Chairman. By whom? 

Mr. Laine. By the Spaniards. 

The Chairman. When? 

Mr. Laine. In the month of October, 1896. 

The Chairman. Where did you go then ? 

Mr. Laine. I was in prison then. 

The Chairman. What became of your father and mother? 

Mr. Laine. They have come to this country. They are living in 
Tampa now. 

The Chairman. Your mother is a native of the United States? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Born at Wilmington, Del.? 

Mr. Laine. At Wilmington, Del. 

The Chairman. What was her maiden name? 

Mr. Laine. Mary Garesche. 

The Chairman. You went from New York to Havana as a corre- 
spondent in 1897; did you not? 

Mr. Laine. On the 1st of January, 1898. 

The Chairman. As a correspondent? 

Mr. Laine. Of the New York Sun. 

The Chairman. For what paper ? 

Mr. Laine. The New York Sun. 

The Chairman. Did you make inquiry of the Spanish authoritie ' 
whether you would be safe in doing so? 



508 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Laine. I spoke to the Spanish consul in New York, and I spoke 
to Secretary Congosto when I arrived there. 

The Chairman. What assurance, if any, did you receive 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. Secretary Congosto told me that as long as he would be 
there nothing would happen to me. 

The Chairman. Did you enter upon your duties at Havana? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. You used to exchange notes with other correspond- 
ents for the purpose of furnishing each other news ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Did you know a newspaper correspondent by the 
name of Diaz? 

Mr. Laine. Francesco Diaz ? 

The Chairman. An old friend of yours? 

Mr. Laine. Well, an acquaintance. A reporter has a great many. 

The Chairman. Was he engaged in Havana at that time? 

Mr. Laine. He was engaged in reporting for the Union Constitution el. 

The Chairman. Was that a Weylerite paper? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; a Weylerite paper. 

The Chairman. Very radical? 

Mr. Laine. Very radical. 

The Chairman. You have stated to me heretofore some events con- 
nected with a letter or a copy of a letter which you received from Mr. 
Diaz purporting to be a letter which General Weyler had sent to the 
editor of that newspaper. Now, I wish you to go on in your own way 
from the beginning, and state the history of that business and what 
happened to you on account of it. 

Mr. Laine. I met Diaz one night in a room of the Hotel Ingleterra, 
where the reporters used to congregate at night to talk and exchange 
notes. In talking with him he told me that General Weyler had 
acceded to become a candidate for the Cortes of Spain for the district 
of Havana. Asking him how he knew that,, he told me he had a copy 
of a letter of General Weyler. The letter had been written by General 
Weyler to Santos Guzman, a lawyer, and head of the Spanish consti- 
tutional party in Cuba— the Weyler party. Mr. Santos Guzman had 
given the letter to Mr. Novo, editor of the paper, the Union Constitu- 
cionel. 

The Chairman. Have you that copy of the letter with you now? 

Mr. Laine. I have not. It is in New York, sir. 

The Chairman. Will you furnish it, or a copy of it, to this committee? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. It is in Spanish, 

The Chairman. And with it a translation? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. Both? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Go on with your statement. 

Mr. Laine. This reporter, Diaz, saw the letter at the office of the 
paper there and took a copy of it, which copy he gave me. I do not 
remember the exact words of the letter. 

Senator Lodge. State the purport of it. 

Senator Gray. Subject to correction when you send the committee a 
copy. 

Mr. Laine. In the letter Weyler said 

Senator Foraker. In substance? 

Mr. Laine. Yes; Weyler said that after mature consideration he had 



AFFAIRS IK CUBA. 509 

decided to run as a candidate for a deputy of the Cortes in Spain. Of 
course the letter is much longer than that, you know. 

Senator Foraker. Just give the substance of it. 

Mr. Laine. And he gave his reasons why he ran as a candidate and 
gave some advice to Santos Guzman on that subject. Then he added 
that he had read that the Americans were intending to send a warship 
to Havana; that they had never dared to do so in his time, as he had 
the harbor well prepared for such emergencies 

Senator Gray. Well prepared ? 

Mr. Laine. Well prepared for such emergencies, and that he hoped 
there would be a Spanish hand who would chastise in a fitting way 
that offense. 

The Chairman. Go on with your statement. 

Mr. Laine. The Maine not having arrived then, and knowing noth- 
ing at all about the arrival of American ships, that part of the letter 
had no importance at all. 

Senator Foraker. Was that before you had heard that the Maine 
was coming"? WiiKHJrtl) 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; it was before that. This- was so much so that 
as to that part of the letter I could hardly understand what he was 
referring to. The Maine arrived. 

Senator Foraker. What did you do with the letter 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. I have got the copy of the letter. I sent the news to 
this country that Weyler was willing to run as a candidate for the 
Spanish Cortes. 

Senator Lodge. That was the part of the letter that interested you? 

Mr. Laine. That interested everybody then. Weyler had always 
said that he was not affiliated to any Spanish party. I kept the letter 
in my desk ; I pigeonholed it in my desk and paid no more attention 
to it. The Maine arrived on the following day — two days after that. 

Senator Gray. Two days after you saw the copy of the letter 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes; two days after I had the copy of the letter the 
Maine arrived. 

Senator Gray. Do you recollect about the date of the letter? 

Mr. Laine. I think it was the 24th, at nighttime 

Senator Gray. The 24th of January'? 

Mr. Laine. Of January, about 10 o'clock at night. At 10 or 11 o'clock 
at night he gave me the letter. 

Senator Gray. But do you recollect the elate of the letter? 

Mr. Laine. The letter was written in Madrid on the 8th of January. 

The Chairman. Proceed with your statement. 

Mr. Laine. The Maine arrived on the following day, and on the 15th 
of February it was blown up. I then recalled Weyler's letter. I took 
it out of my desk and read two or three times over his last paragraphs. 
I went to see Diaz three times, and tried to get at any price the original 
letter, and could not do it. A few days after that 

Senator Gray. Did he deny the authenticity of the letter when you 
applied to him? 

Mr. Laine. Oh, no. I did not see Diaz after that until the time I 
am going to refer to now. A few days after the explosion of the Maine 
I met Diaz leaving the palace of the Captain- General as I was entering 
it. After saluting him he said to me, "Do you remember the copy of 
the letter of General Weyler I gave you?" I told him, "Yes." He 
said to me, " What do you think about what Weyler said of the Amer- 
ican ship?" I answered that I thought someone had followed his 
advice. Diaz, being a Spaniard, looked at me very seriously in the 



510 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

face. I understood right then that I bad made a false step. On the 
night of the 4th — let me see — Wednesday; if I had a calendar here 

The Chairman. There is a calendar here. 

(A calendar was handed to the witness.) 

Mr. Laine (after examining the calendar). On the night of March 4, 
at 12 o'clock that night, as I was leaving the Hotel Ingleterra, I saw 
two figures on the sidewalk. They were the chief of police of Havana 
and a detective, who I afterwards ascertained had been following my 
footsteps for several days. As I passed the two figures the chief of 
police told me, " Stop, sir; you are under arrest." A cab was passing 
by. I was ordered to get in, and the detective took me to the jefatura, 
or police headquarters. There, after being searched for incriminating 
papers, I was locked in a small cell incommunicado. An hour after 
that the chief of police arrived, and said to me, " Well, we have you 
secure here at last." I made no reply to him, and he began to threaten 
me. 

The Chairman. He spoke to you through the bars, did he not ? 

Mr. Laine. Oh, yes; 1 was inside the cell. 

The Chairman. What was his language in threatening you 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. I think I ought to refer to the cab again and the way. 

The Chairman. Oh, yes. 

Mr. Laine. As the detective was paying for the cab that took us to 
jefatura I was able to signal to the cabman, who was an acquaintance 
of mine, to inform my friends that I had been detained. He nodded 
with his head and I knew that he had understood my sign. He was a 
Cuban, you know. When the chief of police began to threaten me 

The Chairman. What did he say? 

Mr. Laine. He said to me, "The secret that I know you know Avill 
never be known by others, as they will not know either what has hap- 
pened to you." I then replied to him, "If you think, Colonel" — he is 
colonel of police — "that you can make me disappear as you did Posado 
and Ariza" (two young men who had been taken out of the place and 
killed in the outskirts of Havana by the Havana police) "you are very 
much mistaken, as by this timethe French and the American consuls who 
were my friends know that I am detained." The chief of police changed 
his threatening attitude, ordered me out of the cell, ordered two chairs 
to be brought, and asked me to sit down as he wanted to have a talk 
with me. He then said, " I know all about a copy of a letter which you 
say you have of Weyler. That does not trouble me. What I want to 
know is what you said to Consul Lee on the 24th of February concerning 
the explosion of the Maine." I answered him that I had not spoken on 
that subject to Consul Lee. I was ordered to be locked up again it) the 
cell. The next morning I was sent to the Fortress Las Cabanas. On 
Wednesday March 9, at 11 o'clock in the morning, I was taken out of 
my cell by a Spanish captain of the Fortress, put on board a Govern- 
ment boat, rowed to the steamer Olivette by Spanish sailors; and that 
is all. There is not anything more to it. 

The Chairman. You were placed on board the Olivette f 

Mr. Laine. That is all. I do not know yet why f. have been expelled, 

The Chairman. You came to this country % 

Mr. Laine. I came to this country. 

The Chairman. You have been here ever since? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; I have been here ever since. 

Senator Gray. Did you bring that copy ot the letter away with you? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. Where was it? 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 511 

Mr. Laine. Being a correspondent of an American newspaper and 
receiving all sorts of letters from the insurgents and people of that 
kind, I kept those documents in a secret corner of my room. The Span- 
ish authorities, when they searched my room, were unable to find that. 
A friend of mine lived in the same house, the house of an American, Dr. 
Wilson, and knew where I kept my things. I was able to send him a 
message from the fortress and tell him to pack all my clothes and send 
all my papers. My clothes were sent to me, my valise, but the papers 
were given in a sealed envelop to the agent of the Plant Steamship 
Company, who delivered them to me on board the steamship Olivette, 
and I signed a receipt for them from this young man, named Mr. 
Miranda. 

Senator Foraker. You signed the receipt for this sealed package of 
papers on board the Olivette f 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; on board the Olivette. 

Senator Foraker. After the Spaniards had put you there? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. And that package contained this copy of Weyler's 
letter to which you have referred"? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; and it contained a great many things. 

Senator Foraker. Where is that copy of the Weyler letter now 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. I have it in New York. 

Senator Gray. And you will send us the original Spanish copy and 
a translation? 

Mr. Laine. Y r es, sir. 

The following is the copy of the letter referred to above with its 
translation : 

Madrid, Enero 8 de 1898. 
Sr. Francisco de los Santos Guzman, Habana. 

Mi distinguido amigo Y correligionario : Mi opinion sobre la actitud de nues- 
tro partido en Cuba ha cambiado ante los ultimos sucesos. 

Si yo crei antes que el partido debia dignamente abstenerse de entrar en la con- 
tienda electoral, ahora creo que es una necesidad patriotica y un deber que tome 
parte en esa elecciones. 

No cabe dudar del exito ni de muestra mayoriaen las listas: ni tampoco de que un 
programa fun dado en la defensa del honor nacional habia de arrastrar junto con 
nosotros los elementos tibios; pero sinceramente espaiioles que se ban dejado ilu- 
sionar por las combinaciones de Moret y Sagasta y que han tornado por buena nioneda 
y corno combinaciones cientificas la verdadera y deshonrosa humillacion de nuestro 
pueblo ante el de los Estados Unidos. 

Inscriban Uds. en su bandera (la bandera de Espaila) "revindicacion del decoro 
nacional" y yo me ofrezco como su candidato. Mi titulo mayor de gloria despues de 
haber mandado durante dos alios doscientos mil heroes espanoles en Cuba, sera" el 
de Diputado por la Habana. 

Por cierto que he leido ultimamente que piensan los Americanos enviar un buque 
de guerra 6 esa ciudad. En mi tiempo ni lo sonaron siquiera. 

Sabian el terrible castigo que les hubiera esperado. 

Yo prepare" ese puerfco para esa contingencia haciendo obras que Martinez Campos 
habia abandonado. 

Si el tal insulto llegara a realiz arse, espero que no faltara una mano espanola que 
se levante para castigar tan ejemplarmente como merece la provocacion. 

Romero esta" bien como nunca lo creimos sus amigos y aparte de los disgustos que 
esta atmosfera de humillaciones me impone lo esta tambien su afmo. amigo. 
Y. S. S. 

Valeriano Weyler. 

Here is a copy of the letter : 

His Excellency Don Francisco de los Santos Guzman, 

Havana. 
My Distinguished Personal and Political Friend: Since the latest events, 
I have changed my views about the attitude which our political party in Cuba 
ousiht to assume. 



512 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

I have thought before that it was more dignified for us to abstain from the elec- 
toral contest; I believe now that it is a patriotic duty for us to go to the polls. Our 
success can not be doubted; neither can be our majority of voters, nor that, with a 
programme of defense of the national honor, we will have side by side with us all 
those lukewarm politicians who, though Spaniards by heart, are deceived by the 
inside combinations of Moret and Sagasta, and take as scientific solutions of our 
colouial problems what are really dishonorable humiliations of our country before 
the United States. 

Write on your flag, the flag of Spain, "Defense of national honor," and I offer you 
my name as your candidate. 

After having commanded during two years 200,000 Spanish heroes in Cuba, the 
title I shall be more proud of is that of deputy from Havana at the Cortes of Spain. 

By the way, I have read these days that the Americans are pondering about send- 
ing one of their war ships to that city. During my command in Cuba they did not 
even dare to dream about it. They knew the terrible punishment that awaited them. 

I had Havana Harbor well prepared for such an emergency. I rapidly finished the 
work that Martinez Campos carelessly abandoned. 

If the insult is made, I hope that there will be a Spanish hand to punish it as 
terribly as it deserves. 

Eomero is in better health than his friends could have expected, and notwithstand- 
ing how morally sick I feel breathing this humiliating atmosphere, is well, also your 
affectionate friend and servant. 

Veleriano Weyler. 

Madrid, January 8, 1898. 

This letter was written to Guzman, who as leader of the Conservative 
party is Spanish as garlic, and was by him turned over to the editor of 
the ultra- Spanish paper, La Union Constitucional, in order that Wey- 
ler's candidacy might be announced and favorably commented upon. 

This was before the Maine had gone to Havana, so there was no imme- 
diate significance in that portion of the letter that referred to the prepa- 
rations to destroy American war ships. 

Senator Foraker. In whose handwriting is that copy of the letter? 

Mr. Laine. I believe it is in Diaz's handwriting. 

Senator Foraker. It is not in your handwriting? 

Mr. Laine. Oh, no, sir. 

Senator Gray. You will make affidavit that that is the copy you 
received from Diaz? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. And that it is given a proper translation ? The trans- 
lation, however, will show for itself. 

Senator Lodge. You will also send us, if you can find them, those 
Spanish papers showing that the lights were turned out? 

Mr. Laine. Yes; I will try to get those Spanish papers which speak 
of the lights. 

Senator Gray. You spoke of being in prison at the time your father's 
plantation was burned? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gray. What was the nature of that imprisonment; was it 
political or otherwise? 

Mr. Laine. Political, sir. 

Senator Gray. Please state the causes and circumstances attending 
your imprisonment. 

Senator Foraker. And the duration of the same, and how it was 
terminated. 

Mr. Lmne. When Gomez and Maceo were on their invading march; 
they invaded the whole island 

Senator Gray. In what year? 

Mr. Laine. That was December 22, 1896. They passed near my 
father's place. I met a friend of mine, Brigadier Zayas, who induced 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 513 

me to accompany him for a few days. In order to see something of the 
war I consented, and I was with Gomez and Maceo for eight days. 
They were then making a circuit, and they promised that they would 
let me go home in the same place that they had taken me prisoner; 
that they had asked me to go with them, which was so. 

Senator Foraker. They were to return tc the same place 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, just making a circle to see the Spanish forces. They 
were going back, you know; and eight days after that I came home. 
Convinced of what the Cubans were going to do in the island, I advised 
my family to leave the plantation and go to Havana, and they did, I 
accompanying them. Eight days after we were in Havana I was taken 
prisoner and accused by the Spanish of being an insurgent chief. I 
was tried twice by the Spanish authorities, once in Havana and the 
other time in Madrid, and I was acquitted in Madrid, as they had no 
charges against me, after being kept in prison for one year, one month, 
six days, and two hours. 

Senator Foraker. What was the nature of your imprisonment? 
Where were you imprisoned, and how? 

Mr. Laine. I was imprisoned until the 24th of June in the Cabanas 
fortress. General Lee one day appeared unexpectedly in the fortress 
to see the crew of the Competitor. This so worried Weyler that in order 
to avoid other visits of General Lee he forbade all foreigners from going 
to the fortress. My father, being a foreigner, was not allowed to go 
there. He had been going to see me for the last five months, you know. 

Senator Foraker. Were you present at the trial had in Havana 
when you were convicted? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, I was present there. 

Senator Foraker. Of what were you convicted? 

Mr. Laine. Well, I do not think I was convicted of anything, but I 
was accused of a good many things. 

Senator Foraker. You say you were accused of being an insurgent 
chief. Is that the charge which was made when you were tried? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. They found you guilty? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Notwithstanding what the testimony was? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Then, you say you were acquitted at another 
trial, in Madrid ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Were you present in Madrid? 

Mr. Laine. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. That trial was upon the record, I suppose? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. They reversed the judgment of the court below? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. What was the sentence pronounced upon you? 

Mr. Laine. Thirty years in chains. 

Senator Foraker. That was pronounced in Havana when you were 
found guilty? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. When you were first arrested, where were you 
taken and how dealt with? 

Mr. Laine. I was taken to the jefatura, and from the jefatura to 
Cabanas fortress. I did not finish what I was saying just now. When 
my father protested he could not go to see me in the fortress, General 
33 



514 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Weyler ordered me to be sent to the city jail, where my father could go 
to see me. 

Senator Foraker. Who interposed in your behalf, if anybody ? 

Mr. Laine. I have had a good many persons. 

Senator Foraker. I mean what official interposed. 

Mr. Laine. In my behalf? 

Senator Foraker. Yes. 

Mr. Laine. Mr, Eustis did a good deal for me, too, in Paris, and the 
French Government, of course. 

Senator Foraker. That is what I wanted to know, whether it was 
the French officials who interposed. 

Mr. Laine. Yes, the French Government got me out of that. 

Senator Foraker. Did you not, when arrested, call upon the repre- 
sentative in Havana of the French Government'? 

Mr. Laine. Oh, yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Did he take any steps in your behalf? 

Mr. Laine. Unfortunately he was the only foreign representative 
who in the time of Weyler received a decoration from the Spanish Gov- 
ernment, and it was not until after he had left Havana and my case 
went to Madrid that the French Government really took an interest in 
my case. 

Senator Daniel. He received a decoration from the Spanish Gov- 
ernment 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, a decoration. He was given a cross. 

Senator Foraker. Were you at any time in incommunicado ? 

Mr. Laine. Twenty-five days, sir. 

Senator Foraker. At what period of your confinement 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. The first twenty- five days. 

Senator Foraker. By incommunicado we are to understand that no 
one was allowed to see you"? 

Mr. Laine. No one was allowed to see me. I could not write nor 
read, and I had no communication with the outside world. 

Senator Foraker. Can you us tell whether the Republic of Cuba 
has any headquarters; and if so, where located 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. They are located in the Province of Camaguey. 

Senator Foraker. At what place? 

Mr. Laine. In the mountains of Cubitas, at a place called Oubitas. 

Senator Foraker. What is the population of Cubitas, just roughly 
stated 1 ? 

Mr. Laine. I think about 800 to 1,000 persons. Of course the Cuban 
Government does not want to keep many women and children there. 
Fearing to be attacked, they prefer to have them dispersed around the 
prefectures. 

Senator Foraker. How long have the headquarters of the Cuban 
Kepublic been at Cubitas? 

Mr. Laine. Since June, 1895. 

Senator Foraker. Have you been at Cubitas since the headquarters 
were located there? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. What officials of the Cuban Eepublic are there, 
if any at all? 

Mr. Laine. Well, there is the President, the Yice-President, the rep- 
resentatives of the constituent assembly, the secretary of war 

Senator Foraker. The cabinet? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir ; the cabinet. 

Senator Foraker. Let me ask you, so as to have it explicitly stated, 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 515 

whether it is or is riot true that the assembly of representatives of the 
Cuban Republic, provided for in the constitution of chat .Republic, and 
the President, Vice-President, and the cabinet, provided for by that 
constitution, all reside at Cubitas during their official terms? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; they all reside there during their official term, 
which is two years. 

Senator Foraker. State whether they have buildings set apart as 
the official buildings of the Republic of Cuba"? 

Mr. Laine. They have; and I could get you a sketch of them. 

Senator Foraker. That is not necessary. You know this from your 
personal knowledge — from having visited the place? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; I have seen them. 

Senator Foraker. Are those buildings occupied by these officials? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Do they conduct the business of their Govern- 
ment there and have archives? 

Mr. Laine. All the business of their Government is conducted there, 
and they have the archives, which are kept as I have seen them — I do 
not know that they have changed them since then — in cedar boxes, 
which are made in a way that they can be easily transported from one 
place to another in case of emergency. 

Senator Foraker. State what departments of that Government, if 
any, are in operation. 

Mr. Laine. Well, there is the legislative body there, and there is the 
war department; and the minister of finance is there. 

Senator Foraker. State whether they have a fiscal system. 

Senator Daniel. A secretary of the treasury ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. And if so, by whom conducted. 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; the fiscal system is conducted by the depart- 
ment of the treasury there, which resides there, and taxes are collected 
by the Cubans all over the island, for which they always give a receipt. 

Senator Foraker. In the name of the Cuban Eepublic? 

Mr. Laine. In the name of the Cuban Republic; and the property of 
people who pay their taxes there is always respected. Only about two 
months ago a gentleman from New York, Mr. Louis Marx, asked me in 
Havana 

Senator Foraker. Have they tax collectors throughout the island? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; that is what I was going to say now. Mr. Marx 
owns a tobacco plantation near Alquizar. He informed me that the 
Cuban tax collector had come to his plantation and collected his taxes. 
He paid the contribution. He showed me the receipt and he asked me 
to inquire whether it was made in due form and by duly authorized 
persons. 

Senator Foraker. Is that the end of your statement on that point? 

Mr. Laine. I was going to give the proofs. I inquired of the prefect 
of Havana, who lives in the city of Havana, whether the said man was 
really the authorized man to do so, and when he saw the signature 
and how do you call that thing they put on paper? 

Senator Foraker. The stamp? 

Mr. Laine. When he saw the signature and the stamp he informed 
me that it was correct. 

Senator Foraker. Then, as I understand you, they have a prefect 
in each subdivision of territory throughout the island? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; throughout the Island of Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. What kind of an officer is a prefect? 



516 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Laine. The prefect is generally chosen as a married man who 
knows how to read and write, and who has good conduct. He is the 
one who is in charge of all the petty civil charges of his neighborhood. 

Senator Foraker. Do yon mean that he is a judicial officer? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; he is one who has to take care of the children 
and see that they go to school, and protect the women and children. 
He has to furnish guides in traveling. It is a judicial and military 
title at the same time. He has to furnish guides to different bands or 
forces of Cubans who travel from one part of the island to another. 

Senator Foraker. And they have a prefect even in Havana? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; in the city of Havana. 

Senator Foraker. They have them scattered throughout the island? 

Mr. Laine. All over the Island of Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. Are they in the constant discharge of their duties? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Is the prefect in the city of Havana appointed by 
the Eepublic of Cuba, known as such? 

Mr. Laine. He is known to all Cubans. 

Senator Foraker. He is known only to the Cubans? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. He is not known to the Spanish authorities? 

Mr. Laine. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Now tell us as to their postal system, whether or 
not they have any in operation. 

Mr. Laine. They have a perfect postal system all over the island of 
Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. What is the nature of it? 

Mr. Laine. It is carried by special messengers in the provinces ot 
Havana and Matanzas, in the trains of the Spanish Government, and 
through where there are no railroads by men on horseback. Do you 
wish me to describe how it is done? 

Senator Foraker. Yes. 

Mr. Laine. I do not know whether or not that would be interesting 
to put down, but I will just show you how it is done. There is a tree 
in Cuba called the royal palm, which gives a special bark, and these are 
the mail bags, because it is impervious to water. They make the bags 
out of this bark and carry them on horseback, and when the horse 
swims the stream the water does not cause damage. 

Senator Foraker. Are those the official mail bags that you speak of? 

Mr. Laine. No ; that is the way that I have seen them carried. 

Senator Foraker. Have they any such thing as a postage stamp? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Who manufactures and furnishes that stamp ? 

Mr. Laine. It is manufactured in this country. 

Senator Foraker. And furnished by whom? 

Mr. Laine. By the Cuban Government. If you wish, I can send you 
different postage stamps at different prices. 

Senator Foraker. That is not necessary. Are these postage stamps 
recognized as payment for the carrying of the mails in Cuba? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; in the Cuban ranks. 

Senator Foraker. By the Cuban Eepublic? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; by the Cuban Eepublic. 

Senator Foraker. How is it as to a system of education? Have 
they any? 

Mr. Laine. In these prefectures they have teachers who give lessons 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 517 

to Cuban children. Education, according to the rules of the Cuban 
Kepublic, is compulsory. 

Senator Foeaker. It is compulsory? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; compulsory. 

Senator Foeaker. Is that system prevalent and in operation through- 
out the territory occupied by the Cubans'? 

Mr. Laine. Throughout all the territory occupied by the Cuban forces. 

Senator Foeaker. Where do they get their school books? 

Mr. Laine. They print them in Cuba themselves. 

Senator Foraker. In Cuba! 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; in Cuba, in the printing offices of the govern- 
ment. 

Senator Foeakee. Has the government printing offices? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foeakee. How many and where? 

Mr. Laine. They have one at Cubitas. 

Senator Foeakee. Have they any other than that? 

Mr. Laine. I do not know of an official one, only that one. 

Senator Foeakee. That is official ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foeakee. Do I understand you to state that they have 
their public-school books? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foeakee. Which are supplied under Government super- 
vision and by Government direction? 

Mr. Laine. To the different prefectures. 

Senator Foeakee. To the different prefectures? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foeakee. And by the prefects distributed? 

Mr. Laine. To the children. 

Senator Foeakee. So, if I understand you, they have a system of 
collecting taxes, they have a postal system of the character described, 
and they have an educational system? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foeakee. All in operation? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foeakee. And this house of representatives is constantly 
in session, do I understand you to say? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir ; in the town of Cubitas. 

Senator Foeakee. The members of this house of representatives 
are elected by a direct vote of the people, as I understand you? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Daniel. The council is the cabinet? 

Mr. Laine. The council. 

Senator Foeakee. They have a president, a vice-president, and a 
cabinet or council? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foeakee. And the house of representatives elect them, as 
I understand you? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir ; the elections take place every two years. 

Senator Foeakee. Who was the first President of the present Eepub- 
lic of Cuba? 

Mr. Laine. Salvador y Betancourt. 

Senator Daniel. That last is his mother's name? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; his mother's name. In Cuba, and in Spain also, 
they always take the mother's and father's name to distinguish from 
cousins and others who may have the same name. 



518 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Senator Foraker. Did you know him? 

Mr. Laine. I have seen him, but I do not know him personally? 

Senator Foraker. Do you know what his reputation is as a man ol 
character? 

Mr. Laine. He is a man who belonged to a very good Cuban family. 
He has a title, Marquis Santa Lucia. He does not use his title. 

Senator Foraker. He does not use that title? 

Mr. Laine. He does not use that title. 

"Senator Foraker. Is he an educated man? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; he is an educated man. He was educated in 
this country and in England. 

Senator Foraker. He is a man of prominence in Cuba? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. He was president for two years? 

Mr. LainE. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Who is the present president? 

Mr. Laine. Bartolme Maso. 

Senator Foraker. Do you know what his reputation is and what 
character of man he is in Cuba? 

Mr. Laine. He has been the only man I have known the Spaniards 
to speak in high terms of, because he was a man who had large business 
interests in Cuba — sugar interests. He was in the secrets of the com- 
ing revolution, and a few days before the revolution broke out he called 
all his creditors and paid them cash for his outstanding debts. 

Senator Foraker. And then went into the army? 

Mr. Laine. And then went into the army. 

Senator Foraker. Is he an educated man ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. I call your attention to a short biographical 
sketch of him found in Senate Document No. 129, Fifty-fifth Congress, 
second session, at page 7. I will ask you to look at it and state whether 
that is a correct account of him, so far as you know? 

Mr. Laine (examining the document as indicated). It says here: 

On the 24th of February, 1895, he settled his business affairs, paid his obligations 
even to the last penny, and with a tranquil conscience went to the field. 

This is the thing, so well known, that impressed the Spaniards, o± 
which I spoke a moment ago, about the honesty of the man. 

Senator Foraker. The question I ask you is whether the sketch as 
there given is correct? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; to my knowledge it is correct. 

Senator Foraker. I wish you would also read the sketch immedi- 
ately following of Dr. Domingo Mendez Capote, the vice-president of 
the Eepublic, and state whether or not it is correct, so that we may 
have before us some account of these officials. 

Mr. Laine (examining the document as indicated). Well, being 
acquainted with Mr. Domingo Mendez Capote I can say that all that is 
here stated is perfectly correct. 

Senator Foraker. He is a man of respectability, then, and of posi- 
tion, and was before the insurrection? 

Mr. Laine. That is proved by the positions which he held in Havana 
in foreign as well as in Spanish companies — corporations. 

Senator Daniel. Do you say that you knew him? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Daniel. Did you state that you went to school with him? 

Mr. Laine. No; but I knew him very well in Havana. He was a 
man very well known by everybody by the positions he held. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 519 

Senator Foraker. Here is a short biographical sketch of at least 
some members of the cabinet. Here is a sketch of Col. Ernesto Fonts 
y Sterling, secretary of the treasury. 

Mr. Laine. I know him very well. 

Senator Foeaker. Please look at the biographical sketches of the 
members of the cabinet that follow in the same document and state 
whether or not they are correct. You can just glance through them 
and answer, so far as you know. 

Mr. Laine. Col. Ernesto Fonts y Sterling is a young man with whom 
I have been very well acquainted. I have known him very well for 
many years. He is an intimate friend. He is the secretary of the 
treasury of the Cuban Republic. He comes of an aristocratic Cuban 
family of lawyers. They have all been lawyers in that family. He has 
two brothers who are practicing law in Havana, one holding a Spanish 
Government position. His brother Carlos holds a government position 
under the new autonomist government. 

Senator Foraker. Then follows a sketch of Brigadier Jose B. Ale- 
man, the secretary of war. 

Mr. Laine. I know his general reputation, but I am not personally 
acquainted with him. 

Senator Foraker. The sketch is in accord with his general reputa- 
tion ? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. The next sketch is that of Andres Moreno de la 
Torre, secretary of foreign relations. 

Mr. Laine. I am personally acquainted with him, and know this 
sketch to be correct. 

Senator Foraker. The next is Dr. Manuel Ramon Silva, secretary 
of the interior. Are you personally acquainted with him? 

Mr. Laine. No, sir; I am not personally acquainted with him. 

Senator Foraker. Do you know his reputation? 

Mr. Laine. I know but little about him, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Can you tell us whether all these officials, the 
president, vice-president, and members of the cabinet, are white men? 

Mr. Laine. Yes, sir; they are all white men. They are all white 
men, belonging to the best Cuban families. 

Senator Foraker. We are much obliged to you, Mr. Laine, for your 
attendance here. 



STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN J. GUERRA, APRIL 8, 1898. 

Benjamin J. Guerra, being duly sworn, testified as follows: 

Senator Foraker. Please state your age and residence. 

Mr. Guerra. Forty-two years; residence, 104 West Sixty-first street, 
New York City. 

Senator Foraker. What is your occupation ? 

Mr. Guerra. Merchant. 

Senator Foraker. What kind of a merchant? 

Mr. Guerra. I am a cigar manufacturer. 

Senator Foraker. To what extent have you engaged in the business 
of manufacturing cigars? 

Mr. Guerra. I have a cigar factory in Tampa, Fla., and one in Key 
West, Fla. 



520 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Senator Foraker. Do you put your own product on the market? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; I have business relations in all the States of 
the Union. 

Senator Foraker. Of what nationality are you"? 

Mr. Guerra. Cuban. 

Senator Foraker. You have resided in Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; all of ray life until the year 1878. 

Senator Foraker. Where have you resided since then? 

Mr. Guerra. In New York City. 

Senator Foraker. Do you now hold any official relation to the 
Eepublic of Cuba? And if so, state what it is. 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; I am the treasurer of the Cuban delegation. 

Senator Foraker. What do you mean by that term? What is the 
Cuban delegation and where is it located ? 

Mr. Guerra. It is the representation of the Cuban Government in 
the United States. 

Senator Foraker. Who constitute that delegation? 

Mr. Guerra. Mr. Thomas Fstrada Palm a, Dr. Joaquin Castillo, sub- 
delegate; Antonio Gonzalez Lanuza, secretary, and myself, treasurer. 

Senator Foraker. There are four of you, then, in all? 

Mr. Guerra. Four in all. 

Senator Foraker. Are there any other official representatives of 
the Eepublic of Cuba in the United States? 

Mr. Guerra. Goncalo de Quesada, who is the charge d'affaires at 
Washington. 

Senator Foraker. And anyone else? 

Mr. Guerra. Mr. Diaz Albertini, secretary of legation. 

Senator Foraker. By whom were you appointed to your present 
position, and have you any evidence of your appointment? 

Mr. Guerra. I was appointed by the President of the Eepublic of 
Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. With the ayjproval of his cabinet? 

Mr. Guerra. With the approval of his cabinet. 

Senator Foraker. Have you the evidence of that appointment? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Will you produce it and allow it to be copied into 
the record? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes [producing a paper]. I have it and now produce 
it. It is in Spanish. I will have it translated and a copy of it fur- 
nished for the record. 

The paper was thereupon translated by Mr. Quesada and submitted 
as follows: 

[There is a seal which says, 
"Republic of Cuba. Chancery. 
Secretary of the Government.''] 

"Jose Clemente Vivanco, 

" Se<?y of the Government Council and 

"Chancellor of the Republic of Cuba. 

"I certify that on page two hundred and twenty-four of volume sec- 
ond of the minutes of the sessions of this council there is copied the 
following resolution, adopted by the council on the 6th of January: 
' On motion of the secretary of foreign relations, it is resolved to appoint 
Citizen Benjamin J. Guerra treasurer of the plenipotentiary delegation 
abroad.' 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 521 

"And at the request of the secretary of foreign relations I issued the 
present certificate. Country and liberty in the free town of Santa Lucia 
od the 28th of June, 1897. 

"Jose Clemente Vivanco. 

[There is a seal: Hepublic 
of Cuba, Presidency.] 

"Approved. 

(Signed) "Salvador Cisneros, 

" The President" 

Senator Foraker. Do you know whether the Kepublic of Cuba has 
'issued any bonds at any time since its organization until the present? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. And if so, to what amount in money"? 

Mr. Guerra. By the authority and direction of the Government of 
the Republic of Cuba, Mr. Estrada Palma and myself have caused to 
be printed bonds to the amount of $3,145,600. 

Senator Foraker. Who authorized the printing of those bonds'? 

Mr. Guerra. The Government of the Republic of Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. Have you the authority of which you speak, that 
was given by the Government of the Republic of Cuba to yourself and 
Mr. Palma to issue those bonds'? 

Mr. Guekra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Will you produce it and allow it to be copied into 
the record ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; here it is [producing a paper]. 

Senator Foraker. I will have a copy of it made for the record. 

The paper referred to is as follows: 

"Republic of Cuba, Provisional Government. 
11 1, Salvador Cisneros y Betancourt, President of the Republic of Cuba, 
to all whom these presents may come, greeting : 

"By virtue of the powers which have been conferred upon me by the 
constituent assembly, under date of the 18th of September, 1895, I 
hereby confer upon citizen Tomas Estrada Palma, delegate plenipo- 
tentiary of the Government of the Republic, the following powers: 

"First. That personally, or by means of delegates, he represent the 
Republic of Cuba before the Government and people of all nations to 
which he may deem convenient to name a representative, giving him 
the powers he may deem adequate. 

"Second. That he may contract one or more loans, to use the money 
in the service of the Republic, guaranteeing said loans with all the 
properties and public income, internal or of the customs, present and 
future, of the said Republic; issuing bonds, registered or to bearer, to 
the amount he may deem necessary, payable both as to interest and 
place of payment as he may deem convenient, hereby empowering him 
to fix the denominations, the rate of interest, conditions of payment of 
capital and interest, as he may deem most favorable, and to place said 
bonds on the most advantageous terms, and to pledge them. 

"Third. To issue paper money in the name of the Republic of Cuba 
to the amount he may consider necessary, in the form and on conditions 
he may deem most adequate. 

"Fourth. To issue postage stamps of the denominations he may 
judge convenient for the service of the Republic. 

" Fifth. The bonds to be issued as well as the bills shall be signed 
by the delegate plenipotentiary or the person whom he shall delegate 



522 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

and by the treasurer of the 'Cuban Revolutionary Party,' and shall 
bear the seals and countermarks which the delegate believes necessary 
to avoid counterfeits. 

" Sixth. (Eelates to appointment of sub- delegate, who shall act in 
case of death or disability of delegate.) 

"Seventh. (Authorizes substitution of power in whole or in part and 
authorizes appointment of employees.) 

"Eighth. The delegate may receive, collect, and invest the funds 
which from auy source whatever may come into his hands, doing so in 
the form which he may judge most favorable to the interests of the 
Eepublic, as well as the power to make concessions and celebrate in the 
name of the Eepublic all the agreements and contracts, which he may" 
deem beneficial to the interests thereof, which from now on are declared 
ratified by the Government he represents. 

"Given in Anton under my signature and that of the secretary of 
foreign relations and the treasury, the 21st day of November, one 
thousand eight hundred and ninety-five. 

"Salavador Cisneros y B., 

"The President. 
"Severo Pina, 
" The Secretary of the Treasury and 

of Foreign Relations ad interim. 11 

State of New York, 

City and County of New York, ss: 
Leopoldo de Arrastia, being duly sworn, deposes and says: 
That he is a notary public in and for the city and county of New York. 
That he is well acquainted with the English and Spanish languages and 
has often been employed as sworn translator from the Spanish into the 
English language, and that he is fully proficient to act as such. 

That the above is a correct and accurate translation of the power 
of attorney given by the Government of the Eepublic of Cuba to Tomas 
Estrada Palma, under date of the 21st of November, 1895. 

Leopoldo de Arrastia. 

Sworn to before me this 19th of March, 1896. 

[seal.] Leon J. Benoit, 

Notary Public (377), New York County. 

Senator Foraker. Can you tell us to what extent the bonds which 
you say have been printed under this authority have been disposed of? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Tell us in detail what has become of them — where 
they are now, if you know 1 ? 

Mr. Guerra. We have sold for cash, to several people, as per the 
book I present here to you (producing a record book), $94,050, and we 
have disposed of for merchandise, $28,350, which makes a total of bonds 
disposed of of $122,400. 

Senator Foraker. Have you any record of the bonds that you have 
disposed of for cash and merchandise? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Where is that record? 

Mr. Guerra. Here it is [indicating the record book]. 

Senator Foraker. You refer to a book which you have before you? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. What is the book? What is the name of it? 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 523 

Mr. Guerra. Sale of Bonds. 

Senator Foraker. Does it contain a complete record of every bond 
that has been disposed of by you and Mr. Palma? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Please explain in detail what that record shows. 

Mr. Guerra. This book shows the date of the operation 

Senator Foraker. Of the transaction! 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, of the transaction; number of the bonds that are 
sold, and then here [indicating] how many bonds; then denomination; 
then marks 

Senator Foraker. By denomination you mean what amount the 
bond is? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; what amount. 

Senator Foraker. What do you mean by marks of the bond? 

Mr. Guerra. Marks by which we can identify them. Then rate at 
which the bond has been sold; the name of the buyer, street and num- 
ber of his residence, city, and State. Here [indicating] are incidental 
remarks; amount; face value of the bond, and net realized. 

Senator Foraker. That is, the amount of the whole number of bonds 
sold in one transaction? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; in each transaction. 

Senator Foraker. Have you any objection to allowing this record 
to be copied? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir; but most of it is in Spanish, except the names 
of Americans and their residence. 

Senator Foraker (examining- record book). I observe that there 
are a little more than twelve closely written pages in this record book. 
On that account I will not take the trouble to have a complete copy of 
the record made, but I should be glad to have a quotation from this 
book running all the way through the record, showing one of these 
transactions, simply as a sample of the record that has been kept. I 
will call your attention to an entry dated May 26, 1806, on page 4. The 
one I indicate to you I ask you to read that it may be incorporated in 
the record. 

Mr. Guerra. (Reading.) Year, 1806; May 26; marks 18 to 37; twenty 
bonds of $100 each ; marks 18 to 20, 21 to 25, 26 to 37 ; rate, 50 per cent; 
name of the buyer, A. Y. Gray, Rutland County, Middletown Springs, 
Vt., care of L. and A. Y. Gray, Middletown Springs Bank and Phoenix 
National Bank of New York; face value, $2,000; net realized, $1,000. 

Senator Foraker. Please state what rates were realized as shown 
by this record for the bonds which you have sold? 

Mr. Guerra. The different rates? 

Senator Foraker. Yes. What is the highest rate you have realized ? 

Mr. Guerra. Par. 

Senator Foraker. How many of those bonds have you sold at par? 

Mr. Guerra. Some six or eight have sold for par. There are some 
at 62i. 

Senator Foraker. And they have sold at prices ranging all the way 
down from par to what as the lowest? 

Mr. Guerra. The lowest is 2» per cent. Some at 62£; some at 50; 
some at 75; some at 61; some at 80; some at 60, and others at 50 and 
40, and of late, by order of the Government, we are not selling them at 
less than 40 per cent. 

Senator Foraker. Can you state without much trouble how many 
you have sold at 25 per cent? 

Mr. Guerra (examiuiug record book). There are sixteen entries 
here at 25 per cent. 



524 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Senator Foraker. What is the aggregate amount of the bonds at 
face value sold at 25 per cent in those sixteen transactions'? 

Mr. Guerra. Thirteen thousand dollars. 

Senator Foraker. Give the date when those bonds were sold at 
25 cents on the dollar, as shown by this record. 

Mr. Guerra. From September 12, 1896, to November 1 of the same 
year. 

Senator Foraker. What is the next entry there*? 

Mr. Guerra. November 11, 1896. 

Senator Foraker. Bun that entry through. What is it"? 

Mr. Guerra (reading). November 11; No. 104; one bond of $100; 
mark 69,618; par; bought by Mr. Joaquin Fortune, of Jacksonville, 
Fla.; $100 face value; $100 net realized. 

Senator Foraker. Have you sold any bonds at 25 cents on the dol- 
lar since November 4, 1896? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; on January 13, 1897, I sold one for that 
amount. 

Senator Foraker. What prices have you realized usually since 
November, 1896, as shown by this record? 

Mr. Guerra. From 40 per cent up. 

Senator Foraker. So far as this record discloses, you have not made 
any sale since then for less than 40 cents on the dollar? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. This record, as I understand you, shows all the 
bonds that have been disposed of for either cash or merchandise? 

Mr. Guerra. For cash only. 

Senator Foraker. Is there a record of the bonds disposed of for 
merchandise? 

Mr. Guerra (producing a record book). Yes, sir; here is a book 
that shows all of the bonds that have gone out of my hands for which 
no cash has entered into the treasury. 

Senator Foraker. Is this a complete record for every such bond? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; of every such one. 

Senator Foraker. You have now accounted for bonds to the amount 
of $122,400, of which you have a record. Where are the rest of the 
bonds that were printed? 

Mr. Guerra. One million of those bonds is deposited in the safes of 
Messrs. August Belmont & Co. 

Senator Foraker. To whom do those bonds belong that are depos- 
ited with August Belmont & Co.? 

Mr. Guerra. To the Kepublic of Cuba, and the balance is in my pos- 
session. 

Senator Foraker. As treasurer? 

Mr. Guerra. As treasurer. 

Senator Foraker. Do any person or persons or any syndicate of 
any kind own or have any lien or claim upon any of the bonds that are 
still either in your possession or in the possession of August Belmont 
&Co. 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Are they the sole property of the Bepublic of 
Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. They are. 

Senator Foraker. It has been stated in conversation, and possibly 
in the newspapers, that recently, in the city of New York, someone was 
offered $50,000 in bonds of the Eepublic of Cuba as a consideration for 
coming to New York and rendering some kind of political service. 
State whether there is any truth in such a statement. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 525 

Mr. Guerra. I do not believe there is any truth in that, because 
nobody from the Cuban delegation has done it, and I do not think any- 
body has $50,000 of these bonds that can be offered. 

Senator Foraker. Would anyone, except Palma, Castillo, Lanuza, 
and yourself have authority to make such an offer on behalf of the 
Republic of Cuba"? 

Mr. Guerra. Nobody else. 

Senator Foraker. Have any other bonds than those you have de- 
scribed ever been issued by the Republic of Cuba or authorized by the 
Republic of Cuba"? 

Mr. Guerra. No other ones. 

Senator Foraker. Have auy person or persons other than your dele- 
gation any authority to deal in the bonds of the Republic of Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Then, as I understand you, the total amount of 
bonds that have been issued by the Republic of Cuba and outstanding 
is $ 122,400 J ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir j that is all that have been sold. 

Senator Foraker. And all the remainder of the bonds are still in 
your possession 1 ? 

Mr. Guerra. They are all in my possession. 

Senator Foraker. Another story has been circulated to the effect 
that someone here in the city of Washington has been offered $3,000,000 
of these bonds as a consideration for rendering some kind of political 
service, the kind of service not specified. Is there any truth in that 
story? 

Mr. Guerra. I do not believe there is any truth in it. 

Senator Foraker. Did anyone connected with your delegation make 
any such offer"? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Or have any authority to make any such offer'? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir; nobody has any authority to do it. 

Senator Foraker. In the House of Representatives, yesterday, Mr. 
Grosvenor, of Ohio, made the following statement, replying to Mr. Lentz, 
who had spoken on the Cuban question: 

" Now, Mr. Speaker, let us see how this situation stands. The gen- 
tleman is greatly worried about bonds, and he read the name of John 
J. McCook in one of his raids this afternoon. 

" Who is John J. McCook'? Whom does he represent ? What is he 
here for? How do he and the gentleman from Ohio stand with ref- 
erence to this? I will show you that they are parties in a great con- 
spiracy; one wittingly so, the other, I trust, ignorantly so. Who is 
John J. McCook? He is the legal representative of the Cuban Junta, 
of New. York, behind which stands four hundred millions, more or less, 
of bonds that can be validated by the recognition of the independence 
of Cuba by the United States, and they will be destroyed by a policy 
that drives Spain out of Cuba in the interest of the American people." 

I)o you know John J. McCook, who is referred to here? 

Mr. Guerra. I do not know him personally. 

Senator Foraker. Has he any relation, official or otherwise, to your 
delegation? 

Mr. Guerra. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator Foraker. Has he any relation to the Government of the 
Republic of Cuba, official or otherwise? 

Mr. Guerra. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator Foraker. Does he have any relation whatever to the bonds 



526 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

that have been issued by the Republic of Cuba, concerning' which you 
have testified? 

Mr. Guerea. None whatever. 

Senator Foraker. Do you know of any issue of $400,000,000 of 
bonds, more or less, by the Republic of Cuba! 

Mr. Guerra. I know nothing about it, and I do not think there has 
been any issued except those that I have described. 

Senator Foraker. Do you know anything about the syndicate and 
the bonds that are referred to by General Grosvenor in the remarks I 
have quoted ? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. General Grosvenor further says in these same 
remarks : 

u I will tell you who John J, McCook is. John J. McCook represents 
an interest running up into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and if 
he could get the United States to make a recognition of the independ- 
ence of Cuba and then fight to establish it by the United States, at the 
cost of a thousand million dollars, the holders of these bogus bonds will 
realize $400,000,000 and collect the money. That is where the bonds 
come in." 

I understand you to say there are no such issues of bonds? 

Mr. Guerra. I know there are not. 

Senator Foraker. Has the question of bonds or the validation of 
bonds anything whatever to do with the question of the recognition of 
the independence of Cuba or with the recognition of the Republic of 
Cuba as the government of Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. None that I know. There were some gentlemen call- 
ing on me in my office a few days ago and asking me what we would 
take for ten millions of bonds. 

Senator Foraker. Did they say they wanted to buy? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. After consulting with Mr. Palma, I told him 
that the lowest price we could make them was 40 per cent. Then he 
made us an offer of 20 cents on the dollar, a cash offer, for the ten 
million — to give us two million for the ten million — which we refused. 

Senator Foraker. Are there any negotiations pending between your 
delegation as the representatives of the Republic of Cuba, and any per- 
son or persons for the sale of any bonds at this time? 

Mr. Guerra. Not to my knowledge. 

Senator Foraker. You are in such a relation to this whole matter 
that you would know about it if there were any such negotiations? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; the bonds have to pass through my hands; I 
have to sign the bonds. 

The Chairman. Can you say that no such negotiations are being 
made? 

Mr. Guerra. None with my intervention. 

Senator Foraker. We want an answer that is not equivocal. State 
whether or not any such negotiations are pending. 

Mr. Guerra. I think there are not. 

Senator Foraker. If there are, you have no knowledge of them? 

Mr. Guerra. I have no knowledge of them at all. 

Senator Foraker. Could they be issued without your knowing 
about it and signing them ? 

Mr. Guerra. They could not. 

Senator Foraker. I mean any large transactions. 

Mr. Guerra. The bonds could not be issued without my signature. 

Senator Foraker. What did you do with the cash realized from 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 527 

these bonds? I do not want an answer in detail, but just state it 
generally. 

Mr. Guerra. We employed it in the furtherance of the cause of 
Cuba in the revolution. 

Senator Foraker. Was all the money appropriated in that behalf 
which was realized from the sale of these bonds? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. How has the money necessary to cany on the war 
the insurgents have been making in Cuba been raised"? 

Mr. Guerra. It has been contributed mostly by the Cubans. 
$472,017.42 have been received by me as treasurer of the Republic of 
Cuba from taxes paid by plantations in Cuba to the department of the 
treasury of the Cuban Eepublic. 

Senator Foraker. Are the taxes that are collected in Cuba by the 
Eepublic of Cuba sent to you 1 ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. After collection? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. And you have received from taxes collected in 
Cuba the amount yon have named? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker, Over $400,000? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. How was that money expended; for the Cuban 
cause, or otherwise? 

Mr. Guerra. It was expended for the Cuban cause. 

Senator Foraker. Can you tell us what kind of a system of collect- 
ing taxes they have in Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. They have the department of the treasury 
organized. The secretary of the treasury is the head. In every one of 
the States there is what they call a ministrator of taxes, which corre- 
sponds to our collector of customs. 

Senator Foraker. What system of levying taxes has the Republic 
of Cuba in force there? You have told us of the official who does the 
collecting. What is the system? 

Mr. Guerra. The system on the sugar plantations is so much per 
bag of sugar produced. Sometimes it has been 40 cents, and in other 
years it has been 25 cents per bag. The Government imposed a war 
tax of 2 per cent on the value given to the plantations in the year 1894. 

Senator Foraker. Upon the value as given in 1894? 

Mr. Guerra. As given in 1894. 

Senator Foraker. When you say the Government you mean the 
Eepublic of Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. The Eepublic of Cuba, 

Senator Foraker. Is that tax system uniform in its operation 
throughout the island? 

Mr.GuERRA. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. That is, every man is taxed alike, according to 
the same principle? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. And is this system enforced throughout the 
island? 

Mr. Guerra. It is. 

Senator Foraker. Have you tax collectors in all of the different 
States? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 



528 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

The Chairman. Is that done by virtue of a statute of the Cuban 
congress? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. And not by a military regulation? 

Mr. CUERRA. Not military at all; the army has nothing to do with it. 

Senator Foraker. Who appoints the tax collectors — the military or 
the civil governments 

Mr. Guerra. The civil government. 

Senator Foraker. Has that civil government, the Republic of Cuba, 
any other branch of government in operation except this fiscal branch 
of which you speak ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. What? 

Mr. Guerra. They have the interior department. 

Senator Foraker. What does that do? 

Mr. Guerra. The head of the interior department is the secretary 
of the interior, but there are governors and prefects and subprefects in 
the different states and districts. 

Senator Foraker. Are those officials whom you mention holding- 
office now? 

Mr. Guerra. They are. 

Senator Foraker. In what way do they get their offices — by election 
or appointment? 

Mr. Guerra. By appointment. 

Senator Foraker. Who appoints them? 

Mr. Guerra. The President of the Republic. 

Senator Foraker. You say that they are appointed throughout the 
island? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. What is a prefect? What are his duties? 

Mr. Guerra. A prefect is a kind of a mayor of the district. 

Senator Foraker. Have you any other brauch of the Government 
in operation ? 

Mr. Guerra. The department of war. 

Senator Foraker. Aside from that? I will speak of that presently. 

Mr. Guerra. Well, the civil, I mean the interior department, assumes 
the post-office department. 

Senator Foraker. Has the Republic of Cuba a postal system? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. In operation ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. What is the nature of that system? How do 
they transport the mails ? 

Mr. Guerra. They have post-houses in all the towns— the small 
towns — and they transmit the mails by horses — by couriers. 

Senator Foraker. Have they any postage stamps such as we have 
in this country? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; they have 2 cent, 5-cent, and 10-cent postage 
stamps. 

Senator Foraker. Have you any of those with you 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. That you could show as a sample? 

Mr. Guerra (producing a stamped envelope). Here is a letter 
addressed to me with two stamps on it, from Camaguey district, in 
Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. Will you allow us to put that envelope in the 
record as an exhibit. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



529 



Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. I ask that it be attached as a part of Mr. Guerra's 
evidence. 

The envelope referred to is, in fac simile, as follows: 



oC-A»_ 1_^^-^V^*->*aX 




Senator Foraker. How is it as to an educatioual system? Have 
they any"? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; they have schools. That is also under the 
interior department. 

Senator Foraker. What is the system of education? 

Mr. Guerra. They have primary schools. They have some teach- 
ing books that have been printed there in our presses in Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. Do I understand you to say that the Government 
of the Republic of Cuba has a printing office? 
34 



530 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; they have. There are several newspapers 
printed there. 

Senator Foraker. Does the Government prescribe the books that 
shall be used in the schools'? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. It appoints the teachers, the inspectors. 

Senator Foraker. Does the Government print the school books'? 

Mr. Guerra. They print the school books — the primary books. We 
could, perhaps, supply the committee with some. 

Senator Foraker. How are those books distributed, by the Gov- 
ernment 1 ? 

Mr. Guerra. By the Government. 

Senator Foraker. Is the attendance of children at school optional? 

Mr. Guerra. Compulsory. 

Senator Foraker. It is compulsory? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. All children in Cuba, then, under the Government 
of the Eepublic of Cuba, are required to attend school? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. And are required to be taught in the primary 
branches, for which the Government furnishes the books? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Fokakbr. What kind of a judicial system have they in 
Cuba, under the Eepublic of Cuba, if you know? 

Mr. Guerra. They have what they call the judiciary corps. That 
is attached to the army, though; it is a dependent of the war depart- 
ment. It is made so by the constitution. 

Senator Foraker. The constitution makes that provision? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; while the war lasts. 

Senator Foraker. Where is the capital of the Republic of Cuba 
located ? 

.sir. Guerra. It is in the State of Camaguey, District of Cubitas. 
The town is called Agramonte. 

Senator Foraker. Is there a town named Cubitas also? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir; Cubitas is the district where this town is. 

Senater Foraker. What is the population of Agramonte? 

Mr. Guerra. Agramonte may have about a thousand inhabitants. 

Sena' or Foraker. State whether the Republic of Cuba has at Agra- 
monte, where its capital is located, any official Government buildings. 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; there is one building for the President, and 
one for each of the departments of state, interior, treasury, and war. 

Senator Foraker. Are those buildings occupied for official business 
simply? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. What is the legislative body of the Republic of 
Cuba called? What is the name of it? 

Mr. Guerra. The council of government assumes the legislative 
faculties of the Government until every two years there is the constitu- 
ent assembly to elect another President and another council body. 

Senator Foraker. The members of the constituent assembly are 
elected by a popular vote, I understand? 

Mr. Guerra. By the people; by popular vote. 

Senator Foraker. And then the constituent assembly thus elected 
chooses a President? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. And a Vice-President ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 531 

Senator Foraker. And a cabinet 1 ? 

Mr. Guerra. And a cabinet. 

Senator Foraker. And the President, Vice-President, and cabinet 
conduct the Government? 

Mr. Giterra. Yes, sir. The assembly also elects a general in chief 
of the army. 

Senator Foraker. Who is the President now of the Eepublic of 
Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. Bartolome Maso. 

Senator Foraker. Do you know him personally 1 ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Tell us what kind of a man he is as to character 
and reputation. 

Mr. Guerra. He is a man of great character, known by his honesty 
and by his literary accomplishments. 

Senator Foraker. Is he an educated, cultivated man ? 

Mr. Guerra. He is an educated man. 

Senator Foraker. Where was he educated, if you know? 

Mr. Guerra. In Cuba; at the University of Havana. 

Senator Foraker. What is his business? 

Mr. Guerra. He was a landowner in Cuba; he is a landowner. 

The Chairman. A man of large means? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir; of wealth. 

Senator Foraker. Did he own plantations? 

Mr. Guerra. He does own them. 

Senator Foraker. Who is the vice-president? 

Mr. Guerra.. The vice-president is Dr. Mendez Capote. 

Senator Foraker. How old a man is he? 

Mr. Guerra. He must be about 15 years old. 

Senator Foraker. What was his business before? 

Mr. Guerra. He is a lawyer. He is a doctor in laws. 

Senator Foraker. Was he connected with any university? 

Mr. Guerra. The University of Havana. 

Senator Foraker. In what capacity ? 

Mr. Guerra. He has been a professor in the University of Havana. 
Of the other members of the Government 

Senator Foraker. Yes; speak of them. 

Mr. Guerra. There is the secretary of the interior, as we call him 
He is a doctor, too — a doctor in medicine. 

The Chairman. A doctor of medicine? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Did he graduate in this country? 

Mr. Guerra. He graduated in Havana. 

The Chairman. Well, the secretary of war. 

Mr. Guerra. The secretary of war is General Aleman. 

The Chairman. Tell us briefly about him. 

Mr. Guerra. He was a merchant there. He went into the revolu- 
tion at the beginning and has been lighting until he was elected secre- 
tary of war. He is an educated man, also; a literary man. 

The Chairman. What was his business before? 

Mr. Guerra. He was in business. 

The Chairman. A merchant? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes; a merchant. The secretary of the treasury is 
Fonts y Sterling; he is a lawyer. He is a member of one of the most 
ancient and illustrious families in Cuba. 

The Chairman. A graduate of the university? 



532 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Guerra. A graduate of Havana University. 

The Chairman. What is his profession? 

Mr. Guerra. Law. 

Senator Fokaker. Tell us briefly about the secretary of foreign 
relations. What was his business before he was appointed to that 
office? 

Mr. Guerra. Moreno de la Torre is a doctor in medicine, educated 
in Spain. He is a young man, known for his energy in all revolution- 
ary affairs in Cuba, lie is of a conservative temper, though. That is 
all I can say about him. 

Senator Foraker. To what extent has the Republic of Cuba gov- 
ernmental control of the Island of Cuba, I mean territorially ? 

Mr. Guerra. The Government has control, full control, of all the 
rural districts of the central and eastern parts of the island. 

Senator Foraker. That would be all'of Santiago de Cuba"? 

Mr. Guerra. And Camaguey. 

Senator Foraker. Puerto Principe? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes; Puerto Principe. The Spanish call it Puerto 
Principe, and we call it Camaguey; and Santiago de Cuba Province 
outside of a few cities that are held by the Spanish Government. 

Senator Foraker. What proportion of the population of Cuba 
responds to your Government or shows it allegiance? 

Mr. Guerra. In my opinion, SO per cent of the population of the 
island are friendly to the revolution. 

Senator Foraker. What is the population in the provinces of San- 
tiago de Cuba and Camaguey, where you say the Republic of Cuba is 
in complete control? 

Mr. Guerra. The population is about half a million. 

Senator Foraker. Are the people in those provinces friendly and 
satisfied, apparently, with the Government of the Republic of Cuba? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Would or would not, in your opinion, the Gov- 
ernment of the Republic of Cuba be able to administer satisfactorily 
the civil affairs of the Island of Cuba if they were let alone and allowed 
to discharge their functions of government without interference by the 
Spaniards? 

Mr. Guerra. I am positive that they would be able to do it satis- 
factorily. 

The Chairman. State the extreme eastern limit in Cuba of the con- 
centration of the inhabitants under Weyler's order. 

Mr. Guerra. The limit is the Jucaro-Moron trocha. 

The Chairman. Is that trocha east or west of Havana? 

Mr. Guerra. That trocha is east of Havana. 

The Chairman. That is the extreme eastern trocha? 

Mr. Guerra. That is the extreme eastern trocha. 

The Chairman. East of that trocha is there any concentration at 
all? 

Mr. Guerra. No, there is no concentration east of that. 

The Chairman. What provinces lie east of that trocha? 

Mr. Guerra. Camaguey and Santiago de Cuba. 

Senator Foraker. Can you give us the area in square miles of those 
two provinces? 

Mr. Guerra. It is more than half the island in territory — in super- 
ficial territory. 

Senator Foraker. To what extent is the Republic of Cuba in control 
in the outlying country districts in the other provinces of the island? 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 533 

Mr. Guerra. The Republic of Cuba is iu control in about two-thirds 
of the rural districts. 

Senator Foraker. Outside of those two ? 

Mr. Guerra. Outside of those two. 

Senator Foraker. They are in entire control in those two? 

Mr. Guerra. In entire control except those parts that are covered 
by the Spaniards. 

The Chairman. Do you mean to say that in those portions you have 
just spoken of they collect taxes as you have previously stated? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. What do you say as to schools in those portions'? 

Mr. Guerra. There are less, if any, in those portions than in the 
others. 

Senator Foraker. Throughout the two provinces of which you have 
complete control you have your tax system and your school system and 
all these other functions of government in operation 1 ? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Without interruption? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Is there any other school system than that which 
the Republic of Cuba provides in those two provinces"? 

Mr. Guerra. There is the Spanish system in the cities — the larger 
cities. 

Senator Foraker. But I mean outside the cities? 

Mr. Guerra. jSTo. 

The Chairman. Previous to the establishment of this common- 
school system by the Republic, what common school system had Spain 
established? 

Mr. Guerra. A regular common -school system in the cities only ; 
not in the rural districts. 

The Chairman. A common-school system in the cities, but none 
whatever in the rural districts? 

Mr. Guerra. Xone. 

The Chairman. As to the limits ot concentration, I suppose that in 
the portions of Cuba which the Republic holds there is concentration 
in the cities which the Spanish happen to hold, is there not? 

Mr. Guerra. Yes; but almost all the country people are in the coun- 
try in those districts. 

The Chairman. Take Santiago de Cuba. Is there not concentration 
there ? 

Mr. Guerra. I do not think there is much concentration in Santiago 
de Cuba, because in the beginning of the revolution all the country 
people went to the country, and the Spanish Government has no means 
of concentrating them there. 

The Chairman. Would you be surprised to learn that the consular 
reports show that there is a great deal of concentration and death and 
misery there? 

Mr. Guerra. Those are the regular city people. I call it concen- 
trating to bring those people who have always lived in the country to 
the cities and keep them there without any means, while if there is 
misery, on account of the war, among those people who have always 
lived in the city because they can not get any work or any supplies, ] 
do not call that a concentration. There may be misery and all thai 
among them, but they are not what we regularly call reconcentrados. 
We apply that term simply to country people, peasants, who have 
lived always by laboring in the soil and who have been brought by 
force to the cities and kept there. Those are what I call reconcentrados. 



534 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Senator Foraker. You have told us who constitute the delegation 
and what other representatives of the Eepublic of Cuba there are in 
this country. You have also told us of various other officials who are 
conducting the Government of the Eepublic of Cuba. Can you tell us 
what salaries those officials receive for their services? 

Mr. Guerra. There is no Cuban in the service of the Eepublic who 
receives any salary. 

Senator Foraker. Do you mean to say that the President and Vice- 
President and cabinet, who are devoting all their time in the way you 
have indicated, receive no salaries? 

Mr. Guerra. They receive no salary. 

Senator Foraker. They receive no salary whatever? 

Mr. GrUERRA. No salary whatever. 

Senator Foraker. No official connected with the civil government 
receives any salary? 

Mr. GrUERRA. No official connected with the civil government receives 
any salary. 

Senator Foraker. How is it as to the army? 

Mr. Guerra. They receive no salary at all. 

Senator Foraker. Then no officer or soldier in the army of Gomez 
receives any salary? 

Mr. Guerra. No, sir; nor Gomez himself, either. 

Senator Foraker. How many soldiers has Gomez now in his com- 
mand or under his command? 

Mr. Guerra. In my opinion, in the neighborhood of 35,000. 

Senator Foraker. Every man works simply for 

Mr. Guerra. For patriotism. 

Senator Foraker. That is all. I am much obliged to you. 

Mr. Guerra. You are welcome, sir. 



STATEMENT OF HON. FITZHUGH LEE, April 12, 1898. 

Senator Frye. General, you have just returned from Cuba? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Frye. You sent to the State Department certain communi- 
cations touching the ship Maine. Have you any information additional 
to that conveyed in those communications? 

Consul-General Lee. I have not. 

Senator Frye. Have you any information in relation to torpedoes or 
anything of that kind in the harbor? 

Consul-General Lee. I am informed on very good authority that 
they have placed within the last mouth two rows of torpedoes just at 
the mouth of the harbor by Morro Castle and the switch board is in a 
room in the Morro. 

Senator Frye. Had you any information as to the placing of any 
torpedoes before the Maine was destroyed? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir. 

Senator Frye. Have you any information in relation to purchases 
made abroad, or have any communications been made to you by reliable 
persons of purchases of torpedoes made abroad? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir. 

Senator Frye. Have you any reason to suppose that the harbor was 
mined at all before the blowing up of the Maine? 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 535 

Consul-General Lee. jSTo, sir. ISTo; I had no reason to suspect any- 
thing of that sort up to that time. 

Senator Gray. But since then? 

Senator Frye. Have you since received any information which leads 
you to suppose that it was mined before the disaster? 

Consul-General Lee. I have seen a letter, and probably you, gentle- 
men, have also seen it, published in one of the Sew York papers by a 
person named Laine, from General Weyler to Santos Guzman, a citizen 
of Havana, a very ultra Spaniard, in which General Weyler says that 
he went on with the placing of the mines in the harbor, which Martin 
Campos, his predecessor, should have done. 

I saw afterwards that General Weyler pronounced the letter a for- 
gery, but I happen to know of a telegram received from Weyler since, 
and this is the only reason I have to suspect that there were some 
mines there previous to the entrance of the Maine into the harbor. 
You have probably seen the letter which Laine published. 

The Chairman. We have a copy of it on file. 

Consul-General Lee. I see that Santos Guzman, under date of March 
18, 1898, says to the editor of the Herald: 

I have not received General Weyler' s letter dated January 8, to which the New 
York Herald makes reference in its cablegram of yesterday addressed to me. 

A Madrid dispatch further says : 

General Weyler denies the authenticity of the letter published in New York yes- 
terday in which the former Captain-General of Cuba is alleged to have said that the 
United States would not have dared to send a warship to Havana while he was in 
command there, as "they knew the terrible punishment that awaited them," adding 
that he had Havana Harbor "well prepared for such an emergency," having "rap- 
idly finished the work that Martinez Campos carelessly abandoned." 

I knew Laine very well. He was expelled from the island about sev- 
eral weeks ago, but I always found him a very upright, honest, straight 
fellow; and when I saw that he had a copy of a letter from Weyler to 
Santos Guzman, of Havana, 1 thought the chances were that he had a 
copy of a genuine letter, and that the facts were as stated; so I put 
some machinery to work and I found tins cablegram, which had never 
been given to the public in any way. 

Eva Canel 

She is quite a noted Spanish woman there, who was a great admirer 
of General Weyler, during the mob and so on, the riots, hallooing "Viva 
la Weyler" and "Muera Blanco" (death to Blanco). General Blanco 
had her expelled from the island and sent to Mexico. 

Eva Canel and Santos Guzman 

Which is the very one that Laine refers to in his letter. This is in 
Spanish, but the translation is as follows: 

Grave circumstances cause me to ask you to destroy the last letter of February 18. 

The Chairman. Signed by whom? 

Consul-General Lee. Signed "Weyler." 

The Chairman. Dated when? 

Consul General Lee. There is no date to the telegram I have here, 
but it says : " In consequence of the grave condition of affairs or circum- 
stances ('make without effect' the Spanish is) destroy the last letter of 
date 18th February." 

The Chairman. Whence does the telegram purport to have been sent? 

Consul-General Lee. From Barcelona, I think. 

The Chairman. Have you any doubt that is a genuine copy of a 
telegram from Weyler? 



536 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Consul-General Lee. I am satisfied it is a genuine copy of a telegram 
received in Havana. 

The Chairman. From Weyler? 

Consul-General Lee. From Weyler. 

Senator Frye. What is the date of the letter which Laine talks 
about? 

Senator Foraker. January 18, I believe. 

Consul-General Lee. Laine's letter was dated in January, sometime. 

Senator Gray. January 8? 

Consul-General Lee. January 8. This asks Santos Guzman, in 
consequence of grave circumstances which have arisen, to destroy his 
last letters of the ISth of February. This is simply rather confirmatory. 
If he had written to Guzman on the 8th of January, it makes this tele- 
gram that much more probable, and that he has also written to him 
after the 8th of January, and probably there was a very important let- 
ter on the 18th of February, which he wanted destroyed. 

Senator Morgan. A few days after the ship was destroyed"? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir; the ship was destroyed on the 15th. 
1 suppose the news readied Spain probably on the 16th, or something 
of that sort, and Weyler telegraphed right over. 

Senator Frye. Have you learned anything about any wire, such as is 
ordinarily used for torpedo service, ordered from Great Britain, or 
anywhere else? 

Cousul-General Lee. I saw a copy of a telegram from Admiral Man- 
terolla in Havana, to the Spanish commission, as he put it, in London 
stating: "Hurry up electrical cables." Whether that referred to wire 
for submarine mines or torpedoes I do not know. I tried to ascertain 
if any of the wire or electrical cables had arrived there, but they came 
on Spanish ships and I could not find out. I have always had an idea 
about the Maine that, of course, it was not blown up by any private 
individual or by any private citizen, but it was blown up by some of 
the officers who had charge of the mines and electrical wires and tor- 
pedoes in the arsenal there who thoroughly understood their business, 
for it was done remarkably well. 

I do not think General Blanco, the present Captain and Governor 
General of the Island of Cuba, had anything to do with it. I do not 
think he had any knowledge of it. I saw him just shortly after the 
occurrence. I was sitting in my room at the hotel and from the balcony 
of the hotel I could hear this. I heard the explosion and saw a great 
column of fire go up in the air. A few moments after ascertaining that 
it was the Maine, I went right down to the palace and 1 asked for Gen- 
eral Blanco. He came in directly by himself. He had just heard it 
and was crying: tears were coming out of his eyes. He seemed to 
regret it as much as anybody I saw in Havana; but I think it came 
from some of the subaltern officers who had been there under Weyler, 
and who were probably anti-Bianco anyhow, and who had full knowl- 
edge of the business. 

Senator Frye. General, what have been the orders prevailing in 
Havana as to the sale of explosives of various kinds? 

Consul-General Lee. I have never heard of any explosives being on 
sale there, or any orders about it one way or the other. 

Senator Frye. Would they permit explosives to be sold in the ordi- 
nary way? 

Consul-General Lee. Xo, sir; I think not. They are very careful 
about that; so much so 

Senator Frye. And have you been so for a long time? 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 537 

Consul General Lee. Very; so much so that when Captain Sigsbee 
wanted to use a little dynamite for the purpose of getting the 10-inch 
guns from the Maine, they violently objected to it; they did not want 
him to have any dynamite. I do not think they would allow any pri- 
vate store in Havana to sell dynamite or any explosive materials of 
any kind. 

Senator Frye. Have you read the testimony taken by our naval 
board ? 

Consul-General Lee. I glanced at it. I have not read it over very 
carefully. 

Senator Frye. Were you present in Havana all the time when they 
were conducting their inquiry! 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Frye. Are you familiar with what was done and what was 
found? 

Consul-General Lee. I am tolerably familiar with it. I knew noth- 
ing about the report of the board, of course, until it was published, 
although I saw the officers every day. I saw them sometimes in town, 
and L was on board ship almost every day. I do not suppose there 
was a day they were there that I did not see Sampson and Potter and 
Marix. You know courts of inquiry in the Navy are like courts-martial 
in the Army. The officers are sworn, and they do not tell anybody 
what the findings are. 

Senator Frye. From what you have observed and heard there, have 
you any doubt as to the explosion of the Maine having been from the 
outside? 

Consul-General Lee. I am satisfied it was from the outside. I cabled 
to the State Department a few days after the board assembled that it 
was almost certain that the explosion took place from the outside. I 
got that from some of the divers and from Ensign Powelson, and peo- 
ple I happened to meet and talk to about it. I had some little drawings 
of the ship. 

The Chairman. A moment ago you started to say something about 
a telegram from Admiral Manterolla respecting 

Consul-General Lee. It was a telegram to the Spanish commission 
in London to hurry up the electric cables. 

The Chairman. What I want to know is, whether that was before or 
after the explosion? 

Consul-General Lee. I had that telegram. I want to see if I can get 
the exact date of it. That statement about the Admiral is in my testi- 
mony before the board of inquiry. I thought I had a copy of that. 1 
do not remember the date exactly. It was prior to the explosion of the 
Maine. 

The Chairman. About how long prior? 

Consul-General Lee. A very short while. You can find that tele- 
gram in my testimony before the board; and I think it is right to say 
that that testimony about the admiral telegraphing to London, and this 
dispatch 1 have just given out here from Weyler to Santos Guzman, 
were not sent to Congress and were not published, because I sent a 
telegram requesting the State Department not to do it, as 1 was afraid 
the Spanish papers there would republish it and they would probably 
kill the man that gave it to me, so to protect him 1 did not want that 
known at the time. I can get the exact date of it, however. 

The Chairman. It is not material. 

Consul-General Lee. They -have the exact date of it at the State 
Department. 



538 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Senator Gray. You gave it in your testimony before the board? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Clark. But that is not printed. It was withheld at the 
General's request. 

Consul- General Lee. At my request. I ought to state, injustice to 
the State Department, that I telegraphed the State Department asking 
them not to have the telegram published, or this one about Weyler, 
because I was afraid of getting my informant into trouble. 

Senator Feye. We can get that at the State Department, and I 
guess we had better do it. 

Senator Morgan. How long, or about how long, after the explosion 
was it that General Blanco called at your quarters that night? 

Consul General Lee. Before he called at my quarters? 

Senator Morgan. Yes. 

Consul-General Lee. You are not referring to my statement that I 
called at his palace the night of the explosion ? 

Senator Morgan. Probably I am. 

Consul-General Lee. That was the night of the explosion. 

Senator Morgan. Was that before you went down to the wharf? 

Consul-General Lee. The palace is between my hotel and the harbor, 
and on my way to the harbor I stopped at the palace, about ten or fifteen 
minutes after the explosion— as soon as I could get down there in a 
carriage. I called by to see General Blanco. 

Senator Morgan. After you had heard the explosion how long was 
it before you reached the water's edge? 

Consul-General Lee. Ten minutes afterwards I was in the palace, 
and I spent about five or ten minutes talking to General Blanco. He 
gave me an order to the admiral to give me one of the admiral's boats 
to take me right out into the harbor. 

Senator Morgan. When you got down to the water's edge did you 
see any electric lights burning? 

Consul-General Lee. I did not notice that, but I have made inquiries 
since, and I have ascertained that no electric lights went out. I sent 
for electric-light men and gas men. Some gas jets went out in one or 
two places, caused by the shock or something, but I could not ascer- 
tain from these men that a siugle electric light went out. 

Senator Gray. Captain Sigsbee, in his testimony before the commit- 
tee, said he was told, shortly after the explosion, by Admiral Mauterolla 
that the electric lights in Havana went out simultaneously with the 
explosion. 

Senator Foraker. In the vicinity of the harbor. 

Senator Gray. In the vicinity of the harbor. Mr. Laine, who has 
been before the committee, and who made a very good impression upon 
us — it corresponds with what you say of him — says he was in the park 
opposite, or near the Hotel Inglaterra, looking toward the water with 
another correspondent, and that immediately upon the explosion they 
took a cab and drove to the water front, about 500 yards away, and 
when he got there he did notice that the electric light on a tall pole at 
the gate as he went in and smaller ones at the water front to the num- 
ber of a dozen or more were out. 

Consul-General Lee. I did not notice that at all, but I called up the 
two electric-light men. One of them is a good friend of mine, Carbonel, 
and then he sent for the person who has charge of the electric lights in 
Havana, and I had a talk with him. He came to my office. He said 
he had not heard of any such thing. I said, "I want to know with 
certainty." He said, "I will go all around and make inquiries, if you 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 539 

please." He was gone but au hour or two in a cab, and came back and 
said that with the exception of one electric light at a place called Gesus 
del Monte, right near the harbor, and one other place he mentioned, 
one place not very far from the harbor, where he thought perhaps the 
lights might have gone out by the shock, no other electric lights went 
out. 

Senator Morgan. Could you feel the jar of the explosion at the 
hotel? 

Oonsul-General Lee. No, sir; I was in my room at the hotel. 

Senator Frye. I wish to ask one more question in regard to the 
Maine, and then I shall be through, so far as that is concerned. Have 
you heard since the explosion of the Maine any expression by Spanish 
officers in relation to it, indicating their pleasure at the fact? 

Consul-General Lee. I heard, two or three days afterwards, from 
various persons Who came in, that there was a good deal of rejoicing 
among some of the officers. Every report I always got said they were 
drinking champagne, quite a thing to do in honor of the event, and in 
different portions of the city officers were making merry. I attributed 
it to the fact that what they considered almost an enemy's battle ship 
had been blown up, and it was that much in their favor. 

Senator Morgan. Before the explosion, had you heard any threats 
of or allusions to the destruction of the Maine? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir. 

Senator Lodge. General, did you hear anything of an attempt on 
the Montgomery f 

Consul-Gen eral Lee. I heard that there was something of that sort 
one evening, but I believe upon investigation it was found that it did 
not amount to anything. 

Senator Frye. I have asked all I desire to ask about the Maine. 

The Chairman. Does any member of the committee wish to ask any 
questions. 

Senator Foraker. You think that no novice could have destroyed 
the Maine. 

Consul-General Lee. Oh, no, sir. The man who did that work was 
an officer thoroughly acquainted with explosives of all sorts and who 
knew all about it. It was very well doue. 

Senator Foraker. A man who had expert knowledge, necessarily? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Clark. And who must have had knowledge of the location 
of the torpedo? 

Consul General Lee. Yes. I never have been certain that the sub- 
marine mine was placed there prior to the entrance of the Maine into 
the harbor. It might have been done afterwards. The Maine was 
anchored to a buoy by some little chain. A vessel swinging around 
that way sometimes gets at various places all around the circle. When 
she would swing off that way, with the bow next to the buoy, and these 
boats plying about the harbor all the time, anybody could go pretty 
well in front of her on a dark night and drop one of these submarine 
mines of 500 pounds. They have fingers, as it were, and as the boat 
goes around it would touch the finger, which makes contact and 
explodes the mine. That might have been done after the Maine got in 
there. 

Senator Ctjelom. And not be discovered? 

Consul-General Lee. Tes, sir; one or two men rowi g quietly in a 
boat could drop it off the stern of the boat on a dark night, though 
Sigsbee had his patrols out — I do not know what they call them on men 



540 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

of war; sentinels. Still, it might not have been discovered. A boat 
would not have been noticed, because boats go there always. 

Senator Cullom. Day and night? 

CousulGeneral Lee. Yes, sir ; to a late hour of the night. The har- 
bor is full of these little boats. A mine weighs about 500 "pounds, and 
I suppose it would take two or three men — one man to row and proba- 
bly three or four to handle the mine. 

Senator Cullom. Containing 500 pounds of gun cotton ? 

Senator Lodge. And the casing. 

Senator Cullom. And the casing, which weighs something more. 

Senator Gray. What is the population of Havana? 

Consul- General Lee. About 250,000. 

Senator Gray. Of what is that composed, so far as nationality and 
nativity are concerned"? 

Consnl-General Lee. I suppose about equal parts of Cubans and 
Spaniards, now. I suppose one-fourth of the population, possibly, are 
negroes. 

Senator Gray. Is the Spanish proportion especially hostile to this 
country 1 ? 

CousulGeneral Lee. No, sir; I do not think they are now. They 
were. But the Spanish portion are principally the merchants, commis- 
sion merchants, shopkeepers, and all this agitation is affecting very 
much their business. A great many of them, whilst they give expres- 
sion to great loyalty, are really annexationists, because they think it is 
the only way out of the trouble, and they would much prefer annexa- 
tion to the United States to a Cuban republic, fearing that discrimina- 
tions would be made against them in some way, and would rather trust 
to the United States than to the Cubans. 

Senator Gray. How as to the Cuban part of the population ? 

Consnl-General Lee. They are generally all for free Cuba. 

Senator Cullom. What is the condition of the reconcentrados out 
in the country? 

Consul General Lee. Just as bad as in General Weyler's day. It 
has been relieved a good deal by supplies sent from the United 
States, but that lias ceased now. 

The Chairman. How about the Spaniards? 

CousulGeneral Lee. General Blanco published a proclamation 
rescinding General Weyler's ban do, as they call it there, but it has had 
no practical effect, for in the first place these people have no place to 
which to go; the houses have been burned down; there is nothing but 
the bare land there, and it takes them two months before they can 
raise the first crop. In the next place, they are afraid to go out from 
the lines of the towns, because the roving bands of Spanish guerrillas, 
as they are called, would kill them. So they stick right in at the edges 
of towns just like they did. 

Senator Cullom. With nothing to eat? 

CousulGeneral Lee. Nothing in the world, except what they can get 
from charity; and I am afraid now they are in a dreadful condition, 
because all they had was the American relief, and that is stopped, you 
know. The Spanish have nothing to give. 

Senator Lodge. General, what does this cessation of hostilities 
spoken of in the last few days amount to? 

Consnl-General Lee. Nothing; practically nothing — the armistice, 
you mean? 

Senator Lodge. Yes; so called. 

Consul-General Lee. It amounts to nothing. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 541 

Senator Daniel. Do you know the conditions of it? 

Consul-Geueral Lee. I saw General Blanco's proclamation, which 
said the Queen Regent, at the request of his holiness, the Pope, had 
issued an armistice; but that is not worth the paper it is written on, 
because a truce or armistice between two contending forces requires 
the consent of both before it cau be of any practical effect, and it will 
not have the consent of the insurgents. 

Senator Lodge. What offer did he make to the insurgents? 

Consul-General Lee. This occurred just about the time I left, and I 
do not know. I suppose he just relies upon that proclamation. He 
says the various Spanish officers in different parts of the island will 
see that it goes into effect. 

Senator Frye. Why do you say, General, that it will not receive 
any attention from the insurgent forces'? 

Consul-General Lee. Because every attempt so far to make terms or 
to make peace or to buy the insurgents or their leaders has met with 
signal failure; and whatever may be said about old General Gomez, 
he is, in my humble opinion, fighting that war in the only way it can be 
done — scattering his troops out — because to concentrate would be to 
starve, having no commissary train and no way to get supplies. They 
come in sometimes for the purpose of making some little raid, where 
he thinks it will do something; but he has given orders, so I have 
always been informed, not to fight, not to become engaged, not to lose 
their cartridges; and sometimes when he gets into a fight each man is 
ordered not to fire more than two cartridges. 

When General Weyler was there he went out after him sometimes, 
and they would move up a column and fire, and sometimes the flank of 
the column, and the Spanish soldiers would deploy and throw out 
skirmishers, and the Cubans, like Indians, would go into the woods, 
valleys, and mountain sides, and scatter out, and wait until the Span- 
ish troops were gone. Then the Spanish troops would countermarch 
and go back to town, 3 men killed and 10 or 12 wounded. 

Senator Clark. You think the insurgents would not accept any such 
terms'? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir; I do not think it would be safe for any 
Spanish officer to go out under a flag of truce. They could not buy 
the insurgents. Every time they went out to buy them they killed 
them. 

Senator Mills. How much provisions have they in store for the 
army? How long can they maintain their forces there without bring- 
ing in more provisions ? 

Consul-General Lee. Senator, they are living there almost from hand 
to mouth. 

Senator Gray. Who? 

Consul-General Lee. The Spaniards, and the citizens in the town of 
Havana also. I made some inquiries on that point just before I left. 
They have a good many barrels of flour and a good deal of rice and 
some potatoes, but not a great many, and a little lard; but everything 
that the town of Havana has received in the last four or five or sis 
months has been from the United States by steamers from New York, 
New Orleans, and Tampa. 

Senator Mills. Can they get no subsistence from the island? 

Consul-General Lee. Nothing more than from this floor [indicating]. 

Senator Mills. That is what I supposed. 

Consul-General Lee. The way the insurgents do is this : They have 
little patches of sweet potatoes — everything grows there very abun- 



542 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

dantly in a short time — and. Irish potatoes and fruits. They drive their 
pigs and cattle into the valleys and hillsides, and they use those and 
scatter out. That is the reason why they all scatter out. A great 
many are planting. The insurgents plant crops in many parts of the 
island. 

Speaking about an armistice, they have not been interfered with much 
since General Blanco came there. With the exception of the campaign 
of General Pando in the eastern part of the island, there have been 
very few military operations inaugurated by the Spanish. So it has 
been practically a sort of a truce for some time — the insurgents because 
they did not want to tight and because it was against orders to fight, 
and the Spanish soldiers — 

Senator Mills. Suppose Havana was blockaded, so that no provisions' 
could come in, the people there would have no way to get any? 

Consul-General Lee. None whatever. The town would surrender 
in a short while. 

Senator Foraker. What percentage of the population of the island 
is Cuban"? 

Consul- General Lee. About one million five or six hundred thousand 
people. About one-third of those are negroes. Take off 500,000 and 
that will leave 1,000,000, the Cubans being out of that 1,000,000 all 
except about 300,000. 

Senator Foraker. About 70 per cent? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes; I think all but about 300,000. 

Senator Foraker. Are all the Cubans friendly to the insurgents? 

Consul-General Lee. I never saw one who was not. 

Senator Foraker. They are all friendly to them? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes. 

Senator Frye. What kind of men are the Cubans in the city? What 
character of men are they? 

Consul-General Lee. There are some very good ones there and some 
are very trifling. It is like almost every population. The wealthier 
classes and the best educated and all those have generally left the 
island. They left nearly three years ago, when the war broke out. 
They are in London and Paris and many of them are in New York. I 
understand that 40,000 of them are in the United States. 

Senator Morgan. I wish to ask you, if you please, about the people 
we have been feeding in Cuba, on your requisition, from the Treasury of 
the United States. About how much of the appropriation of $50,000 
have you expended? 

Consul General Lee. Forty-five thousand dollars. There is $5,000 
left. 

Senator Morgan. Who got the benefit of it? 

Consul-General Lee. American citizens. 

Senator Morgan. Do you mean native or adopted? 

Consul General Lee. Native American citizens and naturalized 
citizens. 

Senator Morgan. Were they in Havana chiefly or in the country? 

Consul-General Lee. All over the whole island. 

Senator Morgan. Was it a matter of actual necessity to feed them, 
or was it just a matter of kindness? 

Consul-General Lee. They were practically in the condition of all 
the other inhabitants of the island. They have had very little if any 
business to work at. There were not a great many sugar plantations 
in operation nor tobacco places and that kind, and they were suffering 
like everybody else. This money was applied for the relief of Ameri- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 543 

cans, and then afterwards they got up a general relief for everybody, 
for the reconcentrados, as they call them. 

Senator Cullom. Did the Spanish army get any of the supplies sent 
from the United States"? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir; occasionally they might have gotten 
a little here and there. 

Senator Morgan. We noticed that in one of your reports (I think it 
was a report made to you by a consul; I cau not refer to it from memory 
at this moment of time) a statement was made to the effect that the peo- 
ple all through those settlements were not permitted to go outside of 
the line of concentration back to their homes. 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Morgan. That was the fact? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir; they have only recently been per- 
mitted to do so by a proclamation of General Blanco. 

Senator Morgan. How recently? 

Consul General Lee. Not quite three weeks ago. 

The Chairman. Has General Blanco begun to relieve the reconcen- 
trados, as has been said? 

Consul-General Lee. Very little, indeed. They distributed some 
down there when the matter was first agitated, but it was a drop in the 
bucket. 

The Chairman. How long ago was that? 

Consul-General Lee. That was possibly eight or ten months ago, 
when they were first considering the relief of those reconcentrados. 

Senator Frye. What is the condition of the Spanish soldiers there 
in the island ? 

Consul-General Lee. Verj^ bad. 

Senator Frye. As to clothing and subsistence, how are they? 

Consul-General Lee. They are badly clothed and very badly fed; 
not well organized; not drilled. Nobody ever saw Spanish soldiers 
drill. 

Senator Frye. If Spain has really appropriated $600,000 for the sus- 
tenance of the reconcentrados, as it is stated, do you believe that that 
will be given to those people, and that their own soldiers will be left to 
starve ? 

Consul-General Lee. Oh, no. There will be very little of it paid to 
anybody. 

Senator Foraker. What will become of it? 

Consul-General Lee. They will divide it up here and there — a piece 
taken off here and a piece taken off there. I do not believe they have 
appropriated anything of the kind. I see those things on paper always. 

Senator Frye. You would have no confidence in it and would not 
advise us to have any confidence in it? 

Consul-General Lee. Not a particle. 

Senator Morgan. Let me ask you, if you please, as to those persons 
whom you have been supplying with subsistence there from the Treas- 
ury of the United States. Now that you have come from the island, 
what pro vision is made for their support? 

Consul-General Lee. Well, a great many of those, Senator, have 
departed from the island, but still there are a few scattered about here 
and there. There is no provision at all for them any more than there 
is for the reconcentrados. 

Senator Morgan. So they will be passed in among the starving 
classes unless they are relieved ? 

Consul General Lee. Yes. If the $5,000 had been used before we 



544 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

came away, they would have that now; but they will just have to take 
their chances with the reconcentrados of what is there of food from 
the American relief fund. 

Senator Morgan. If it is our duty to feed those people there in 
Cuba, I suppose we shall have to be active about it in order to give 
them relief? 

(Jonsul-General Lee. Yes; they are suffering - and starving there now 
every day. The Spanish can not feed them. 

Senator Cullom. Now that you and the other consuls have come 
away from the island, who would have charge of the distribution of 
food down there? 

Consul- General Lee. I thought perhaps Miss Clara Barton would, 
because she came back there; but, very much to my surprise, she turned 
around and came out the same day we did, bringing every Red Cross. 
We had a warehouse from this fund that was contributed by the people 
of the United States, and I saw the warehouseman, a man named 
Elwell, that I had put there, on the boat. I asked him what he did 
about the warehouse. He said he just shut it up; that there was not a 
great deal left in it, and that he gave the key to the person who owned 
the property. 

Senator Frye. Did Miss Barton give any reason for leaving? 

Consul-General Lee. She thought there was going to be war and she 
had better get out. She told me coming back that the Red Cross policy 
was to go behind the guns and not in front of them. 

Senator Frye. What, in your judgment, is the possibility of Spain 
conquering the insurgents and restoring peace to the island? 

Consul-General Lee. I do not think there is the slightest possibility 
of their doing it at all in any way. 

Senator Cullom. Provided they do not starve them all to death? 

Consul-General Lee. The same condition of things existed when Mr. 
Cleveland asked me to go down there last June a year ago. I gave 
him a report three weeks after I got there in which I told him there 
was no chance in my opinion of the Spaniards ever suppressing that 
insurrection nor was there any chance of the insurrectionists expelling 
the Spanish soldiers from the island. That report is in the State De- 
partment somewhere to day, and if I had to write it over I would not 
dot an "i" or cross a "t," although I have been there nearly two years 
since then. 

Senator Foraker. Let me call your attention in this connection to 
a letter written by you to the State Department on the 13th of Decem- 
ber last. If you have no objection, I should like to have it go into the 
record. 

Consul-General Lee. I have no objection at all. It is on the same 
line I have been talking upon. 

The letter referred to is as follows: 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, December 13, 1897. 

Hon. William R. Day, 

Assistant Secretary of State, Washington, D. 0. 
Sir: I have the honor to make the following report: 
First. In my opinion there is no possibility of Spain terminating the 
war here by arms. 

Second. Or by autonomy — real or pretended. 

Third. Or by purchasing the insurrection leaders, as recently attempted. 

Fourth. Or, as far as I can see, in any other way. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 545 

Fifth. The contest for and against autonomy is most unequal. 

For it, there are five or six of the head officers at the palace, and 
twenty or thirty other persons here in the city, who, it is said, desire to 
hold the offices to be created under autonomatic forms ; at least, such 
is my information. 

Against it, first, are the insurgents, with or without arms, and the 
Cuban noncombatants. Second, the great mass of the Spaniards, bear- 
ing or nonbearing arms, the latter desiring, if there must be a change, 
annexation to the United States. 

Indeed, there is the greatest apathy concerning autonomy in any form. 
No one asks what it will be, or when, or how it will come. 

I do not see how it could be even put into operation by force, because 
as long as the insurgents decline to accept it, so long, the Spanish 
authorities say, the war must continue. 

I am compelled to say, therefore, that in my opinion autonomy does 
not now, if it ever did, exist as a factor in the solution of the Cuban 
problem. 

I am obliged to say, too, that in spite of published manifestoes 
the government of this island has not been able to relieve from starva- 
tion the Cuban population driven from their homes by the Weyler 
edict, and no longer attempts to do so. 
I am, sir, your obedient servant, 

Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul-General. 

Senator Morgan. I wish to call your attention to the inclosure in 
your dispatch of November 27, 1897. In your letter you say: 

One of two gentlemen who visited the reconcentraclos after they were concentrated 
in Las Fosos, or the ditches in this city, handed me to-day the inclosed paper. The 
names of the two gentlemen are not signed to it for ohvious reasons. 

I do not care about the names; I. suppose they are of no value to us; 
but do you know the gentlemen? 

Consul-General Lee. Oh, yes; they are very reliable. I did not give 
the names because I thought perhaps if the document was published, 
or something of the kind, as the Spanish papers repeat everything, 
these men would be possibly arrested. 

Senator. Morgan. Have you any reason to doubt the entire accuracy 
of that statement? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir; it is correct, in my opinion. 

Senator Lodge. General, what is your opinion of the insurgent 
government? 

Consul General Lee. I have never thought that the insurgents had 
anything except the skeleton form of a government — a movable capital. 
I asked them one day why they did not have some permanent capital, 
and I think they gave a very good reason. They said it would require 
a large force to protect it and defend it, and they could not afford to 
mass up their men there; that the capital and the government offices 
had to move where they could be safest. 

Senator Foraker. Do you know any of the officials connected with 
their civil government? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. You do not know President Maso or Vice-Presi- 
dent Capote or the cabinet? 

Consul-General Lee. I never had any communication with the insur- 
gents in any way, shape, or form while on the island, except when, to save 
Colonel Kuiz's life, I wrote a letter to Aranguren, the insurgent chief. 
35 



546 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Senator Cullom. What is, approximately, the armed force of the 
insurgents ? 

Consul-General Lee. I suppose, if you could get them all up and 
mass them, they would number probably 31,000 or 32,000. The number 
has been up probably as high as 36,000 or 37,000. 

Senator Frye. Are they well or decently armed? 

Consul-General Lee. They are well armed. 

Senator Frye. Have they much ammunition on hand? 

Consul-General Lee. The ammunition varies. I think now and then 
a filibustering expedition gets in in some way and resupplies them, but 
I do not think they have a great deal. I presume that must be so, 
because, as I told you, Gomez issued an order not to fire more than two 
cartridges. 

Senator Frye. What is the force of cavalry? 

Consul-General Lee. They had at one time nearly one-third, but 
they have not so many now. The horses died; it has been hard to get 
horse feed, and so on; and they dismounted a great many of them. 

Senator Foraker. How many Spanish soldiers are in the island now ? 

Consul-General Lee. Capable of making a fight, possibly 55,000 or 
56,000. 

Senator Foraker. And they are rather inadequately disciplined and 
drilled? 

Consul-General Lee. Oh, yes; not drilled, not organized. 

Senator Mills. Not officered well? 

Consul-General Lee. No. 

Senator Foraker. Are they now conducting any offensive military 
operations at all f 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir; they have been going through some 
form with General Pando, down on the eastern division of the island, 
at Santiago de Cuba, but I think that has all stopped now. The last 
information was that Gomez was getting around to flank Pando, and 
there were some fears entertained for his safety. 

Senator Foraker. It is practically only an army of occupation? 

Consul-General Lee. That is about it, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Are the Spaniards confined to the fortified cities? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes. 

Senator Foraker. All are confined to the cities? 

Consul-General Lee. They do not try to occupy the country. 

Senator Foraker. Not outside the cities? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir; and generally the seaports. They do 
not want to get outside of any seaports. The seaports on the southern 
coast and the northern part are occupied by the Spanish troops and some 
of the larger towns in the interior. In the rest are the insurgents. 

Senator Foraker. The insurgents have the rest all around? 

Consul-General Lee. Oh, yes; you can go from Havana 4 or 5 miles 
any day and get to the insurgents. 

Senator Foraker. To what extent do the insurgents control the 
eastern part — Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba? 

Consul-General Lee. Nearly the entire portion of both provinces. 

Senator Foraker. What is the population of those two provinces? 

Consul-General Lee. I do not know what it is as compared to the 
others. 

Senator Lodge. Puerto Principe has a population of about 60,000. 

Consul-General LeE. Santiago de Cuba is the largest in the island, 
I suppose. It has always been considered that there were not many 
Spanish troops there. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 547 

Senator Foraker. The insurgents practically have control? 

Consul-General Lee. So when General Weyler published his procla- 
mation stating that the four western provinces were pacified Gomez 
published a counter proclamation and said that the eastern provinces 
were pacified. 

Senator Foraker. Gomez seems to be a man of a great deal of 
ability ? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes; he commenced to fight the war in that 
way and never has varied, but has gone right on in a straight line. 
They can not get him oft* of it. He goes out a little way, moves in a 
circle, and comes back to the place where he started. 

Senator Foraker. There are probably 300,000 Spaniards in the 
island population? 

Consul-General Lee. I saw it stated the other day at 280,000, and I 
have seen it stated at 360,000. 

Senator Foraker. Are all the Spaniards hostile to the Cubans? 

Consul-General Lee. As a general thing they are. 

Senator Foraker. The Spaniards are hostile to the insurgent gov- 
ernment, and the Cubans are friendly to it, I suppose? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. The line runs about that way? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Foraker. You said a while ago that you were not sure 
whether this mine was planted before or after the Maine went there. 
Was there any place about Havana where private persons could have 
bought this mine and from which they could have taken it and placed 
it? 

Consul-General Lee. No, sir. 

Senator Foraker. Have you any doubt but that it was put there 
by the Government? 

Consul-General Lee. I do not think it was put there by the Govern- 
ment. I think probably it was the act of four or five subordinate 
officers. 

Senator Foraker,. Spanish officers? 

Consul-General Lee. Spanish officers, who had knowledge of the 
location and probably were experts, and had that branch of the service 
to look after. I do not think General Blanco gave any order about it. 

Senator Gray. What number of Spanish troops are on the island 
now, as you estimate the number? 

Consul-General Lee. I suppose probably 97,000 or 98,000. There are 
some 37,000 there in hospitals, and about 50,000, probably 55,000, capa- 
ble of bearing arms. A Spanish steamer goes back to Spain once every 
ten days, and they have taken off in the last year 500 or 800 or 900 and 
sometimes 1,000 Spanish soldiers three times a month. If they aver- 
aged only 700 on a steamer, in a month they would take off 2,100. 

Senator Foraker. What was the largest number they ever had 
there? 

Consul-General Lee. They claimed about 210,000. 

Consul Springer. 237,000 have been sent over. 

Consul-General Lee. Is that shown from the official records? 

Consul Springer. Yes, sir. 

Senator Daniel. When does the rainy season commence? 

Consul-General Lee. It commences about the middle of June or the 
latter part. 

Senator Daniel. What effect would that have upon the Spaniards 
and the Cubans ? 



548 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Consul-General Lee. The Spaniards do not conduct any operations 
at all during the rainy season. The Cubans are acclimated and get 
along better. 

Senator Daniel. Have any of the reconcentrados been put to work 
on public works, as has been intimated in the press? 

Consul-General Lee. ISTo, sir; there are no public works, and there 
is no money to pay for them. 

Senator Daniel. Could an American army of occupation go into 
Cuba with safety now? 

Consul-General Lee. Yes, sir. 

Senator Daniel. I mean on account of climate, and so on. 

Consul General Lee. On account of climate and on account of every- 
thing else. 

Senator Foraker. Is the Spanish army paid up to date, or is it in 
arrears ? 

Consul-General Lee. When I left they informed me that the troops 
had not been paid for nine months, and the officers for about four. 

Senator Daniel. What has become of Miguel Viondi, who defended 
Sanguilly? 

Consul-General Lee. He has been released. He was taken over and 
kept in one of those African prisons for a long time, but immediately 
after General Blanco came back he was released. They said they 
released a great many of those prisoners because they found difficulty 
in feeding them. 

Senator Daniel. Do you regard that General Blanco was lacking in 
courtesy to you on your leaving the Island? 

Consul-General Lee. General Blanco and I always got along very well 
together. We were quite friends. I went into the palace the morning 
I left as a matter of official etiquette, to bid good-bye. 

I went with the British consul-general. I saw Dr. Congosto, the 
secretary to the General. I told Dr. Congosto that I had received 
instructions to leave the island and go to the United States, and I 
called to pay my final respects and would like to see General Blanco. 
He asked me to sit down and said he would go and let him know. He 
went off and stayed about fifteen minutes and came back and said the 
General said please excuse him; he was not well and was lying down. 
I told Dr. Congosto then to say good-bye to him and turned around 
and left. 

Senator Daniel. Were there any demonstrations of ill will toward 
you as you left? 

Consul-General Lee. When we were coming out on the steamer Sat- 
urday evening there was some hallooing, catcalling, and whistling, and 
some Spanish expressions, "Mean cowards, running away," and so on. 
I think that was confined to the lower order of men, however. 

The Chairman. General, we are very much obliged to you. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 549 



CONCENTRATION AND OTHER PROCLAMATIONS OF GENERAL 

WEYLER. 

PROCLAMATION. 

Don Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, Marquis of Teneriii'e, Governor and 
Captain-General of the Island of Cuba, General in Chief of the Army, 
etc., desirous of warning the honest inhabitants of Cuba and those 
loyal to the Spanish cause, and in conformity to the laws, does order 
and command: 

Article I. All inhabitants of the district of Sancti Spiritus and 
the provinces of Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba will have to 
concentrate in places which are the headquarters of a division, a bri- 
gade, a column, or a troop, and will have to be provided with docu- 
mentary proof of identity, within eight days of the publication of this 
proclamation in the municipalities. 

Art. 2. To travel in the country in the radius covered by the col- 
umns in operation, it is absolutely indispensable to have a pass from 
the mayor, military commandants, or chiefs of detachments. Any one 
lacking this will be detained and sent to headquarters of divisions or 
brigades, and thence to Havana, at my disposition, by the first possi- 
ble means. Even if a pass is exhibited, which is suspected to be not 
authentic or granted by authority to person with known sympathy 
toward the rebellion, or who show favor thereto, rigorous measures will 
result to those responsible. 

Art. 3. All owners of commercial establishments in the country dis- 
tricts will vacate them, and the chiefs of columns will take such meas- 
ures as the success of their operations dictates regarding such places 
which, while useless for the country's wealth, serve the enemy as hid- 
ing places in the woods and in the interior. 

Art. 4. All passes hitherto issued hereby become null and void. 

Art. 5. The military authorities will see to the immediate publication 
of this proclamation. 

Valeriano Weyler. 

Havana, February 16, 1896. 



proclamation. 

Don Valeriano Weyler Nicolau, Marquis of Teneriffe, Governor and 
Captain-General of the Island of Cuba, General in Chief of the Army, 
etc. : 

In order to avoid suffering and delay, other than that essential in 
time of war, and the summary proceedings initiated by the forces in 
operation, I dictate the following proclamation: 

Article 1. In accordance with the faculties conceded to me by rule 
two, article thirty-one, of the military code of justice, I assume, as gen- 
eral in chief of the army operating in this island, the judicial attri- 
butes of H. E. Captain-General. 

Art. 2. In virtue of rule two of said article, I delegate from this date 
these judicial attributes to the commanders in chief of the first and 



550 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

second army corps, and to the general commanding the third division; 
that is, in Puerto Principe. 

Art. 3. Prisoners caught in action will be subjected to the most sum- 
mary trial, without any other investigation escept that indispensable 
for the objects of the trial. 

Art. 4. When the inquiry is finished, subject to consultation with 
the judicial authorities, the proceedings will continue during the course 
of operations, and in the presence of the judicial authority, with an audi- 
tor, the sentence may be carried out. When said authority is not pres- 
ent, the process will be remitted to him and the culpable parties 
detained at the locality where the division or brigade headquarters is 
situated. 

Art. 5. The military juridic functionary of whatever rank who accom- 
panies in the operations the judicial authorities, when the latter thus 
decides, will act as auditor, dispensing with the assessors' assistance at 
court-martial, during operations, in cases where no other member of the 
juridic body is at hand. 

Art. 6. When the sentence is pronounced, if the sentence be depriva- 
tion of liberty, the culprit will be brought to Havana, with the papers 
in the case, so that the testimony can be issued as to the penalty, and 
the sentence be carried into effect. 

Art. 7. The said authorities will be acquainted with all cases ini- 
tiated against the accused in war. 

Art. 8. I reserve the right of promoting and sustaining all questions 
of competence, with other jurisdictions, as also with the military, and 
to determine inhibitions in all kinds of military processes, in the terri- 
tory of the island. 

Art. 9. I reserve likewise the faculty of assuming an inquiry into 
all cases, when it is deemed convenient. 

Art. 10. No sentence of death shall be effected without the acknowl- 
edgment by my authority of the testimony of the judgment, which must 
be sent to me immediately, except when no means of communication 
exists, or when it is a case of insult to superiors, or of military sedition, 
in which case sentence will be carried out, and the information furnished 
to me afterwards. 

Art. 11. All previous proclamations or orders, conflicting with this, 
on the question of the delegation of jurisdiction in this island, are 
hereby rendered null and void. 

Valeriano Weyler. 

HAVANA, February 16, 1896. 



PROCLAMATION. 

Hon Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, Marquis of Teneriffe, Governor and 
Captain-General of the Island of Cuba, general in chief of the army, etc. : 

I make known that, taking advantage of the temporary insecurity of 
communication between the district capitals and the rest of the prov- 
inces, notices which convey uneasiness and alarm are invented and 
propagated, and some persons, more daring still, have taken advantage 
of this to draw the deluded and ignorant to the rebel ranks. I am 
determined to have the laws obeyed, and to make known by special 
means the dispositions riding and frequently applied during such times 
as the present, through which the island is now passing, and to make 
clear how far certain points go, in adapting them to the exigencies of 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 551 

war and in use of the faculties conceded to me by number twelve, 
article seven, of the code of military justice and by the law of public 
order of April 23, 1870. And I make known, order, and command that 
the following cases are subject to military law, among others specified 
by the law : 

Clause 1. Those who invent or propagate by any means notices or 
assertions favorable to the rebellion shall be considered as being guilty 
of offenses against the integrity of the nation, and comprised in article 
two hundred and twenty-three, clause six, of the military code, when- 
ever such notices facilitate the enemy's operations. 

Clause 2. Those who destroy or damage railroad lines, telegraph 
or telephone wires, or apparatus connected therewith, or those who 
interrupt communications, by opening bridges or destroying highways. 

Clause 3. Incendiaries in town or country, or those who cause dam- 
age, as shown in caption eight, article thirteen, volume two, of the 
penal code ruling in Cuba. 

Clause 4. Those who sell, facilitate, convey, or deliver arms or 
ammunition to the enemy, or who supply such by any other means, 
or those who keep such in their power, or tolerate or deal in such 
through the customs, and employees of customs who fail to confiscate 
such importations, will be held responsible. 

Clause 5. Telegraphists who divulge telegrams referring to the war, 
or who send them to persons who should not be cognizant of them. 

Clause 6. Those who, through the press or otherwise, revile the 
prestige of Spain, her army, the volunteers, or firemen, or any other 
force that cooperates with the army. 

Clause 7. Those who, by the same means, endeavor to extol the 
enemy. 

Clause 8. Those who supply the enemy with horses, cattle, or any 
other war resources. 

Clause 9. Those who act as spies; and to these the utmost rigor of 
the law will be applied. 

Clause 10. Those who serve as guides, unless surrendering at once 
and showing the proof of force majeure and giving the troops evidence 
at once of loyalty. 

Clause 11. Those who adulterate army food, or conspire to alter 
the prices of provisions. 

Clause 12. Those who, by means of explosives, commit the offenses 
referred to in the law of June 10, 1894, made to extend to this island 
by the royal order of October 17, 1895, seeing that these offenses affect 
the public peace, and the law of April 23, 1870, grants me power to 
leave to the civil authorities the proceedings in such cases as are com- 
prised in captions four and five, and treatise three of volume two of 
the common penal code, when the culprits are not military, or when 
the importance of the offense renders such action advisable. 

Clause 13. Those who, by messenger pigeons, fireworks, or other 
signals, communicate news to the enemy. 

Clause 14. The offenses enumerated, when the law prescribes the 
death penalty or life imprisonment, will be dealt with most summarily. 

Clause 15. All other proclamations and orders previously issued in 
conflict with this are annulled by this. 

Yaleriano Weylee. 

Havana, February 16, 1896. 



552 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



EXTRACTS FROM CONSULAR REPORTS IN REGARD TO AFFAIRS ON 
THE ISLAND OF CUBA. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Day. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, November 23. 1897. 

Sir : I have the honor to briefly submit a statement of what appeals 
to be the present condition of affairs in this island : 

First. The insurgents will not accept autonomy. 

Second. A large majority of the Spanish subjects who have com- 
mercial and business interests and own property here will not accept 
autonomy, but prefer annexation to the United States rather than an 
independent republic or genuine autonomy under the Spanish flag. 

Third. The Spanish authorities are sincere in doing all in their power 
to encourage, protect, and promote the grinding of sugar. The grind- 
ing season commences in December. 

Fourth. The insurgents, leaders have given instructions to prevent 
grinding, wherever it can be done, because by diminishing the export 
of sugar the Spanish Government revenues are decreased. It will be 
very difficult tor the Spanish authorities to prevent cane burning, 
because one man at night can start a fire which will burn hundreds of 
acres, just as a single individual could ignite a prairie by throwing a 
match into the dry grass. 

Fifth. I am confident that General Blanco and Pando, his chief of 
staff, as well as Dr. Congosto, the secretary-general, with all of whom 
I have had conversations, are perfectly conscientious in their desire to 
relieve the distress of those suffering from the effects of Weyler's 
reconcentration order, but, unfortunately, they have not the means to 
carry out such benevolent purposes. 

I have read letters stating that charitable persons in the United States 
will send clothing, food, and some money to these unfortunate people, 
and I have arranged with the Ward line of steamers to provide free 
transportation from New York. I hope to secure the permission of the 
Spanish authorities here for such things to be entered free of duty. I 
am told, however, that they must come consigned to the Bishop of 
Havana. The sufferings of the "reconceutrados" class have been terri- 
ble, beyond description, but in Havana less than in other places on the 
island ; yet Dr. Brunner, acting United States sanitary inspector here, 
informed me this morning that the death rate of the " reconcentrados" 
in this city was about 50 per cent of other places of the island, and 
when it is remembered that there have been several hundred thousands 
of these noncombatants or "pacificos," mainly women and children, 
wno are concentrated under General Weyler's order, some idea can be 
formed of the mortality among them. 

In this city matters are assuming better shape. Under charitable 
committees large numbers of them have been gathered together in 
houses, and are now fed and cared for by private subscripitions. I 
visited them yesterday and found their condition comparatively good, 
and there will be a daily improvement among them, though the lives of 
all can not be saved. I witnessed many terrible scenes and saw some 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 553 

die while I was present. I am told General Blanco will give $100,000 
to tlie relief fund. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bay. 

United States Consulate-General,, 

Havana, November 27, 1897. 

Sir: One of two gentlemen who visited the "reconcentrados" after 
they were concentrated on Los Fosos (the ditches) in this city handed 
ine to-day the inclosed paper. The names of these two gentlemen are 
not signed to it for obvious reasons. 

I personally know the gentleman who brought the communication, 
and know that he stands high iu this community as a man of integrity 
and character. 

The number of "reconcentrados" here, as I had the honor to report 
already, have always been less than elsewhere. I am able to say now 
that they will be taken care of and fed by committees of charitably 
disposed persons. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



[Iuclosure referred to above.] 

Sik: The public rumor of the horrible state iu which the recouceutrados of the 
municipal council of Havana were found iu the Fosos having reached us, we resolved 
to pay a visit there, and we will relate to you what we saw with our own eyes : 

Four hundred and sixty women and children thrown on the ground, heaped pell- 
mell as animals, some in a dying condition, others sick, and others dead, without 
the slightest cleanliness nor the least help, not even to give water to the thirsty, 
with neither religious or social help, each one dying wherever chance laid them. 
And for this limited number of reconcentrados the deaths ranged between 40 and 50 
daily, giving relatively ten days of life for each person, with great joy to the 
authorities, who seconded fatidically the politics of General Weyler to exterminate 
the Cuban people ; for these unhappy creatures received food only after having been 
for eight days in the Fosos, if during this time they could feed themselves with the 
bad food that the dying refused. 

On this first visit we were present at the death of an old man who died through 
thirst. When we arrived he begged us for God's sake to give him a drink ; we 
looked for it and gave it to him, aud fifteen minutes afterwards he breathed his last, 
not having had eveu a drink of water for three days before. Among the many deaths 
we witnessed there was one scene impossible to forget. There is still alive the only 
living witness, a young girl of 18 years, whom we found seemingly lifeless on the 
ground. On her right-hand side was the body of a young mother cold and rigid, but 
with her young child still alive, clinging to her dead breast; on her left-hand side 
was also the corpse of a dead woman holding her son in a dead embrace. A little 
farther on, a poor, dying woman, having in her arms a daughter of 14 crazy with 
pain, who, after five or six days, also died in spite of the care she received. 

In one corner a poor woman was dying, surrounded by her children, who contem- 
plated in silence, without a lament or shedding a tear, they themselves being real 
specters of hunger, emaciated in a horrible manner. This poor woman augments 
the catalogue, already large, of the victims of the reconcentration in the Fosos. 

The relation of the pictures of misery and horror which we have witnessed would 
be never-ending were we to narrate them all. 

It is difficult and almost impossible to express by writing the general aspect of the 
inmates of the Fosos, because it is entirely beyond the line of what civilized humanity 
is accustomed to see ; therefore uo language can describe it. 

The circumstances which the municipal authorities could reunite there are the 
following: Complete accumulation of bodies, dead and alive, so that it was impos- 
sible to take one step without walking over them ; the greatest want of cleanliness, 



552 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



EXTRACTS FROM CONSULAR REPORTS IN REGARD TO AFFAIRS ON 
THE ISLAND OF CUBA. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Bay. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, November 23, 1897. 

Sir : I have the honor to briefly submit a statement of what appeals 
to be the present condition of affairs in this island : 

First. The insurgents will not accept autonomy. 

Second. A large majority of the Spanish subjects who have com- 
mercial and business interests and own property here will not accept 
autonomy, but prefer annexation to the United States rather than an 
independent republic or genuine autonomy under the Spanish flag. 

Third. The Spanish authorities are sincere in doing all in their power 
to encourage, protect, and promote the grinding of sugar. The grind- 
ing season commences in December. 

Fourth. The insurgents, leaders have given instructions to prevent 
grinding, wherever it can be done, because by diminishing the export 
of sugar the Spanish Government revenues are decreased. It will be 
very difficult tor the Spanish authorities to prevent cane burning, 
because one man at night can start a fire which will burn hundreds of 
acres, just as a single individual could ignite a prairie by throwing a 
match into the dry grass. 

Fifth. I am confident that General Blanco and Pando, his chief of 
staff, as well as Dr. Congosto, the secretary-general, with all of whom 
I have had conversations, are perfectly conscientious in their desire to 
relieve the distress of those suffering from the effects of Weyler's 
reconcentration order, but, unfortunately, they have not the means to 
carry out such benevolent purposes. 

I have read letters stating that charitable persons in the United States 
will send clothing, food, and some money to these unfortunate people, 
and I have arranged with the Ward line of steamers to provide free 
transportation from New York. I hope to secure the permission of* the 
Spanish authorities here for such things to be entered free of duty. I 
am told, however, that they must come consigned to the Bishop of 
Havana. The sufferings of the "reconceutrados" class have been terri- 
ble, beyond description, but in Havana less than in other places on the 
island; yet Dr. Brunner, acting United States sanitary inspector here, 
informed me this morning that the death rate of the " reconcentrados" 
in this city was about 50 per cent of other places of the island, and 
when it is remembered that there have been several hundred thousands 
of these noncombatants or "pacificos," mainly women and children, 
who are concentrated under General Weyler's order, some idea can be 
formed of the mortality among them. 

In this city matters are assuming better shape. Under charitable 
committees large numbers of them have been gathered together in 
houses, and are now fed and cared for by private subscriptions. I 
visited them yesterday and found their condition comparatively good, 
and there will be a daily improvement among them, though the lives of 
all can not be saved. I witnessed many terrible scenes and saw some 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 553 

die while I was present. I am told General Blanco will give $100,000 
to the relief fund. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Day. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, November 27, 1897. 

Sir: One of two gentlemen who visited the "reconcentrados" after 
they were concentrated on Los Fosos (the ditches) in this city handed 
me to day the inclosed paper. The names of these two gentlemen are 
not signed to it for obvious reasons. 

I personally know the gentleman who brought the communication, 
and know that he stands high in this community as a man of integrity 
and character. 

The number of "reconcentrados" here, as I had the honor to report 
already, have always been less than elsewhere. I am able to say now 
that they will be taken care of and fed by committees of charitably 
disposed persons. 

•u, .u. jfe Jfc -a/- -u- j; 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



[Inclosure referred to above.] 

Sir: The public rumor of the horrible state iu which the recoucentrados of the 
municipal council of Havana were found in the Fosos having reached us, we resolved 
to pay a visit there, and we will relate to you what we saw with our own eyes: 

Four hundred and sixty women and children thrown on the ground, heaped pell- 
mell as animals, some in a dying condition, others sick, and others dead, without 
the slightest cleanliness nor the least help, not even to give water to the thirsty, 
Avith neither religious or social help, each one dying wherever chance laid them. 
And for this limited number of reconcentrados the deaths ranged between 40 and 50 
daily, giving relatively ten days of life for each person, with great joy to the 
authorities, who seconded fatidically the politics of General Weyler to exterminate 
the Cuban people ; for these unhappy creatures received food only after having been 
for eight days in the Fosos, if during this time they T could feed themselves with the 
bad food that the dying refused. 

On this first visit'we were present at the death of an old man who died through 
thirst. When we arrived he begged us for God's sake to give him a drink ; we 
looked for it aud gave it to him, and fifteen minutes afterwards he breathed his last, 
not having had even a drink of water for three days before. Among the many deaths 
we witnessed there was one scene impossible to forget. There is still alive the only 
living witness, a young girl of 18 years, whom we found seemingly lifeless on the 
ground. On her right-hand side was the body of a y-oung mother cold and rigid, but 
with her young child still alive, clinging to her dead breast; on her left-hand side 
was also the corpse of a dead woman holding her son in a dead embrace. A little 
farther on, a poor, dying woman, having in her arms a daughter of 14 crazy' with 
pain, who, after five or six days, also died in spite of the care she received. 

In one corner a poor woman was dying, surrounded by her children, who contem- 
plated in silence, without a lament or shedding a tear, they themselves being real 
specters of hunger, emaciated in a horrible manner. This poor woman augments 
the catalogue, already large, of the victims of the reconcentration in the Fosos. 

The relation of the pictures of misery and horror which we have witnessed would 
be never-ending were we to narrate them all. 

It is difficult and almost impossible to express by writing the general aspect of the 
inmates of the Fosos, because it is entirely beyond the line of what civilized humanity 
is accustomed to see; therefore no language can describe it. 

The cir6umstances which the municipal authorities could reunite there are the 
following: Complete accumulation of bodies, dead and alive, so that it was impos- 
sible to take one step without walking over them ; the greatest want of cleanliness, 



554 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

want of light, air, and water; the food lacking in quality and quantity, what was 
necessary to sustain life, thus sooner putting an end to these already broken-down 
systems; complete absence of medical assistance, and, what is more terrible than 
all, no consolation whatever, religious or moral. 

If any young girl came in any way nice looking, she was infallibly condemned to 
the most abominable of traffics. 

At the sight of such horrible pictures the two gentlemen who went there resolved, 
in spite of the ferocious Weyler, who was still Captain-General of the island, to omit 
nothing to remedy a deed so dishonorable to humanity and so contrary to all Chris- 
tianity. They did not fail to find persons animated with like sentiments, who, 
putting aside all fear of the present situation, organized a private committee, with 
the exclusive end of aiding, materially and morally, the reconcentrados. This 
neither has been nor is at present an easy task. The great number of the poor and 
scarcity of means makes us encounter constant conflicts. This conflict is more ter- 
rible with the official elements, and in a special manner with the mayor of the city 
and the civil authorities, who try by all means to annihilate this good work. 

The result of the collections are very insignificant if we bear in mind the thousands 
of people who suffer from the reconcentrations; but it serves for some consolation to 
see that in Havana some 159 children and 84 women are well cared for in the asylum 
erected in Cadiz street, > T o. 82 ; and 93 women and children are equally well located 
in a large saloon erected for them in the second story of the Fosos, with good food 
and proper medical assistance, as also everything indispensable to civilized life. 

According to the information which we have been able to acquire since August 
until the present day, 1,700 persons have entered the Fosos proceeding from Jaruco, 
Campo Florido, Guanabo, and Tapaste, in the province of Havana. Of these only 
243 are living now and are to be found in Cadiz street; 82 in the saloon already men- 
tioned, and 61 in the Quinta del Rey and the Hospital Mercedes; the whole amount- 
ing to about 397, and of these a great many will die on account of the great sufferings 
and hunger they have gone through. 

From all this we deduce that the number of deaths among the reconcentrados has 
amounted to 77 per cent. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bay. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, December 3, 1897. 
Sir: Referring to my cipher telegram of the 1st instant, which I beg 
to confirm, reading as follows : 

Assistant Secretary oe State, etc. : 

Inform the Department that he has learned from the United States consul at 
Matanzas of an extensive and dangerous conspiracy under the ex-governor of the 
province, directed against Americans. Action against them to be contingent upon 
movement of the United States Government in favor of independence to Cuba. 

I have the honor to state that rumors have been more or less frequent 
regarding the riotous intentions of some of the dissatisfied elements 
toward citizens of the United States dwelling here and in other parts 
of the island. Any riotous demonstrations here must come from the 
Spanish noncombatants or from the volunteer forces. I do not think 
there is any danger from the former, many of whom seem to be in favor 
of annexation rather than for real autonomy or for an independent 
Cuban republic; and I am inclined to think if General Blanco can 
manage the volunteers, as yesterday he said he could, the trouble from 
that source is diminishing. The origin of the mobs in this city in the 
past has always been located in the ranks of the volunteers, who alone 
nave organization and arms. 

The Governor and Captain-General is now investigating the Matanzas 
rumors and will, I am sure, deal promptly with any conspirators found 
there. 

The Weyler police have all been changed and the officers of the vol- 
unteers, too, when the Government here nas reason to doubt their 
loyalty. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 555 

111 consequence of all this, and the assurance of the governmental 
authorities that American life and property will, if necessary, be pro- 
tected by them at a moment's notice, I have declined to make an appli- 
cation for the presence of one or more war ships in this harbor, and 
have advised those of our people who have wives and children here not 
to send them away, at least for the present, because such proceedings 
would not, in my opinion, be justifiable at this time, from the stand- 
point of personal security. 

I still think that two warships at least should be at Key West, pre- 
pared to move here at short notice, and that more of them should be 
sent to Dry Tortugas, and a coal station be established there. Such 
proceedings would seem to be in line with that prudence and foresight 
necessary to afford safety to the Americans residing on the island, and 
to their properties, both of which, I have every reason to know, are 
objects of the greatest concern to our Government. 
I am, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bay. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, December 3, 1897. 

Sir: I have the honor to state that a representative of a Madrid 
paper here says that "Canalejas has said, upon his return from the 
Yuelta Abajo, or Pinar del Eio Province, after the recent combat there 
between the Spanish Generals Bernal and Hernandez de Calasco, in 
command of 2,300 men and two pieces of artillery, and Cuban forces 
under Pedro Diaz, that, although the Spanish troops have displayed 
once more their usual valor in said fight and the enemy must have suf- 
fered heavy losses, yet the province of Pinar del Eio is not pacified, 
and that there are numerous rebel forces still there; that out of about 
14,(100 Spanish regular troops in that province only about 3,000 or 4,0ll0 
are able to operate, the balance being sick at the hospitals, garrisoning 
towns, and otherwise distributed ; that he believes autonomy prema- 
ture, and inclines himself to the adoption of energetic military action 
for the purpose of finally pacifying said province; that he does not 
believe in altering facts and news; that the truth, no matter how pain- 
ful and bitter it may be, must be known in the Peninsula, where public 
opinion and the press have been deceived regarding the annihilation of 
the war and the so called pacification of the western provinces, among 
which that of Pinar del Kio has been included." 

The Lucha to-day x»ublishes that Canalejas has said " that the eco- 
nomic condition of the Pinar del Kio Province is deplorable, there being 
40,000 'reconcentrados' absolutely destitute, 15,000 of which are child- 
ren, most of whom are orphans; that they are unequally distributed 
throughout the different towns in the province, there being only 460 at 
the capital city of Pinar del Rio, while in small towns like Consolacion 
and Candelaria there are over 4,000. The municipalities can not incur 
any expense because the taxes can not be collected, because most of 
the taxpayers, if not all, have been ruined by the war." 
I am, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



556 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Mr. Lee to Mr. Day. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, December 7, 1897. 

Sir: (The consul -gen era] informs the Assistant Secretary of State 
that measures for the relief of the "reconcentrados" are not suffi- 
ciently energetic to be effective, and that he is advised by the Gov- 
ernor General that authority to admit articles of food and clothing 
from the United States to Cuban ports free of duty rested with the 
authorities at Madrid). 

I see no effects of the governmental distribution to the "reconcen- 
trados." I am informed that only $12,500 in Spanish silver had been 
dedicated to the Havana Province out of the $100,000 said to have been 
set aside for the purpose of relieving them on the island, and that reports 
from all parts of the Province show that 50 per cent have already died 
and that many of those left will die. Most of these are women and 
children. I do not believe the Government here is really able to relieve 
the distress and sufferings of these people. 

I am informed an order has been issued in some parts of the island 
suspending the distribution of rations to "reconcentrados." * * * 
The condition of these people is simply terrible. 

I inclose herewith an official document copy of the comparative mor- 
tality in Havana for the six months ending November 30. It will be 
perceived that there has been a great increase in the death rate, and 
without adequate means in the future to prevent it the mortality will 
increase. I hear of much suffering in the Spanish hospitals for want 
of food, and among the Spanish soldiers. * * * I hear also that the 
Spanish merchants in some parts of the island are placing their estab- 
lishments in the name of foreigners in order to avoid their provisions 
being purchased on credit by the military administration, and that the 
Spanish army is suffering much from sickness and famine, and that a 
great deal of money is needed at once to relieve their condition. In 
some parts of the island, I am told, there is scarcely any food for sol- 
diers or citizens, and that even cats are used for food purposes, selling 
at 30 cents apiece. 

It is a fair inference, therefore, to draw from the existing conditions, 
that it is not possible for the Governor-General of this island to relieve 
the present situation with the means at his disposal. * * * 
I am, etc., 

Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Day. 

[Confidential.] 

United States Consulate-General, 
Havana, December 13, 1897. {Received December 18.) 
Sir: I have the honor to make the following report: 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ M 1 ^P 

The contest for and against autonomy is most unequal. 
For it there are 5 or 6 of the head officers at the palace, and 20 or 30 
other persons here in the city. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 557 

Against it, first, are the insurgents, with or without arms, and the 
Cuban noncombatants; second, the great mass of the Spaniards, bear- 
ing or noubearing arms — the latter desiring, if there must be a change, 
annexation to the United States. 

Indeed, there is the greatest apathy concerning autonomy in any 
form. jSTo one asks what it will be or when or how it will come. 

I do not see how it could even be put into operation by force, because 
as long as the insurgents decline to accept it so long, the Spanish 
authorities say, the war must continue. 

####### 

I am obliged to say, too, that * * * the Government of this 
island has not been able to relieve from starvation the Cuban popula- 
tion driven from their homes by the Weyler edict, and no longer 
attempts to do so. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bay. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, December 14, 1897. 

Sir : I have the honor to report that I have received information 
that in the Province of Havana reports show that there have been 
101,000 "reconcentrados," and that out of that 52,000 have died. Of 
the said 101,000, 32,000 were children. This excludes the city of 
Havana and seven other towns from which reports have not yet been 
made up. It is thought that the total number of "reconcentrados" in 
Havana Province will amount to 150,000, nearly all women and children, 
and that the death rate among their whole number from starvation 
alone will be over 50 per cent. 

For the above number of "reconcentrados" $12,500, Spanish silver, 
was set aside out of the $100,000 appropriated for the purpose of reliev- 
ing all the "reconcentrados" on the island. Seventy five thousand of 
the 150,000 may be still living, so if every dollar appropriated of the 
$12,500 reaches them the distribution will average about 17 cents to a 
person, which, of course, will be rapidly exhausted, and, as I can hear 
of no further succor being afforded, it is easy to perceive what little 
j)ractical relief has taken place in the condition of these poor people. 
I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Bay. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, January 8, 1898. 
Sir : I have the honor to state, as a matter of public interest, that 
the " reconcentrado order" of General Weyler, formerly Governor- 
General of this island, transformed about 400,000 self-supporting peo- 
ple, principally women and children, into a multitude to be sustained 
by the contributions of others or die of starvation or of fevers result- 
ing from a low physical condition and being massed in large bodies 
without change of clothing and without food. 



558 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Their houses were burned, their fields and plant beds destroyed, and 
their live stock driven away or killed. 

I estimate that probably 200,000 of the rural population in the Prov- 
inces of Pinar del Kio, Havana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara have died 
of starvation, or from resultant causes, and the deaths of whole fam- 
ilies almost simultaneously, or within a few days of each other, and of 
mothers praying for their children to be relieved of their horrible 
sufferings by death, are not the least of the many pitiable scenes which 
were ever present. In the Provinces of Puerto Principe and Santiago 
de Cuba, where the "reconcentrado order" could not be enforced, the 
great mass of the people are self-sustaining. 

A daily average of 10 cents' worth of food to 200,000 people would 
be an expenditure of $20,000 per day, and of course the most humane 
efforts upon the part of our citizens can not hope to accomplish such a 
gigantic relief, and a great portion of these people will have to be 
abandoned to their fate. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Mr. Lee to Mr. Day. 

United States Consulate-General, 

Havana, January 17, 1898. 
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith some statistics sent me 
about the mortality in the town of Santa Clara, the capital of Santa 
Clara Province, situated about 33 miles south of Sagua, which numbers 
some 14,000 inhabitants. It will be noticed that there were about 
5,489 deaths in that town in the seven years previous to 1897, which 
included 1,417 in one year from an epidemic of yellow fever, while in 
1897, owing to the concentration order, there were 6,981. The concen- 
tration order went into effect in February. In that year. 1897, the 
month's death rate for January was 78, but in February, the first month 
of reconcentratiou, there were 114, and there has been a gradual 
increase since, as you will see, until in December, 1897, the number of 
deaths was 1,011. I refer to this as a specimen of the mortality on this 
island in consequence of the "reconcentrado order" of the late Captain 
and Governor-General Weyler. 

I am, etc., Fitzhugh Lee, 

Consul- General. 



Consul-General Lee, February 10, 1898, incloses a statement of the 
condition of some small towns near Havana; says the reports were 
made by a person sent by him for the purpose. 

MELENA DEL SUR. 

The unhealthy conditions of this town and the total want of resources 
make it impossible for the mayor to remedy the present miserable sit- 
uation of the people, who die in great numbers from starvation, fever, 
and smallpox. * * * There are other towns in the same condition; 
Guiness, Catalina, and Madruga, whose situation could be in a small 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 559 

degree relieved if the country people could be allowed to leave the 
town freely in search of food, which is very scarce. In some towns this 
is entirely prohibited; in others they are obliged to pay a tax; and not 
having anything to eat, how can they pay a tax? In every town you 
visit the first thing you notice is the unhealthy condition of the men 
and their total want of physical strength, which prevents them even 
from making an effort to procure the means of support. 

CATALINB DE GUINES. 

The condition of the reconcentrados in this town is very sad and 
desperate. There are no zones for cultivation, and they a e therefore 
not allowed, even with a military pass, to leave the town in search of 
work or food, which latter is so scarce that one must walk 4 or 5 miles 
before finding a sweet potato. * * * In these districts the liberty 
given by General Blanco to the reconcentrados is a farce. 

GUINES TOWN. 

* * * In fifteen days 200 reconcentrados have died in Guines 
from starvation and total lack of resources. Many of the sick sleep 
on the floor and on piazzas. 

General Lee, under date of March 14, incloses the following from 
Consul Barker: 

"Dear Sir: 1 will thank you to communicate to the Department as 
quickly as possible the fact that the military commander and other 
officers of the military positively refuse to allow the reconcentrados, to 
whom I am issuing food in its raw state, to procure fuel with which to 
cook this food. In addition, they prohibited this class of people (I am 
only giving food to about one-fifth of the destitute ; the authorities 
have quit altogether) from gathering vegetables cultivated within the 
protection of the fort, telling them : ' The Americans propose to feed 
you, and to the Americans you must look.' " 

General Lee, March 28 : 

"I have the honor to report that instructions have been given by the 
civil governor of Havana that the alcaldes and other authorities shall 
not give out any facts about the reconcentrados, and if any of the 
American relief committees should make any inquiries concerning them 
all such inquiries must be referred to him." 

United States Consul Brice, Matanzas, November 17, 1897: 

«# # # Starvation; no relief is yet afforded the starving thou- 
sands in this province. Several days ago an order from Captain Gin 
was given municipal authorities to issue rations and clothing, but no 
attention is paid to the order. * * * Death rate in this city over 
eighty persons daily, nearly all from want of food, medicines, and 
clothing. As I write this a dead negro woman lies in the street within 
200 yards of this consulate, starved to death; died some time this 
morning, and will lie there maybe for days. The misery and destitu- 
tion in this city and other towns in the interior are beyond description. 
A general order has been issued allowing reconcentrados to return to 
the country, but the restrictions placed in the order are such as to 
practically prohibit. If they went, what can they do without money, 
food, or shelter 1 ? The situation is indeed deplorable, and I am free to 
say no real help can be expected from the Spanish Government, and 
the fate of the remaining reconcentrados is lingering death from 
starvation." 



560 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Consul Brice, Matanzas, December 17, 1897: 

"Sir: I have the honor to report the following Cuban news in this 
Province, taken from personal observation and reliable sources of 
information. Concentrados : Belief offered these and other poor peo- 
ple by Spanish authorities is only in name. * * * 2,000 rations 
were given out for a few days only to 8,000 persons. There are more 
than 12,000 starving in this city to day. * * * Death rate has 
diminished somewhat; now about 63 daily. There are less people to 
die. The scenes of misery and distress daily are beyond belief. Here 
is one out of hundreds. In a family of seventeen living in an old lime- 
kiln all were found dead except three, and they barely alive. * # * 
General Blanco's order allowing reconcentrados, owners of plantations 
and farms, to return and cultivate crops, etc., is inoperative and of no 
avail. Several of our American citizens, owners of land, have repeat- 
edly asked the civil governor of this Province for permission to return 
to their homes, and in every case refused or restrictions imposed im- 
possible to comply with." 

Consul Brice (from a circular letter dated January 8, 1898) : 
u # # # There are in Matanzas Province over 90,000 people who 
are in actual starvation condition. In addition to above, there are 
thousands of families of the better classes, formerly well to do, who 
to-day are living on one meal a day, and that very scant. They have 
sold or pawned their furniture, clothing, jewels, etc., to eke out an 
existence until all is gone, or nearly so. Too proud to beg, they suffer 
in silence, and many die of starvation. The daughter of a former gov- 
ernor of this Province was seen begging on the streets of the city. 
Many of these people call on me privately at my residence, praying for 
God's sake to be remembered when relief comes from the United States. 
It is to be hoped that this relief will come quickly, for hundreds are 
dying daily in this Province of starvation. Conditions are dreadful, 
and no relief afforded by Spanish authorities." 

Santiago de Cuba, Consul Hyatt, December 21, 1897: 
"I respectfully report that the sickness and the death rate on this 
island is appalling. Statistics make a grievous showing, but come far 
short of the truth. * * * Dr. Caminero, United States sanitary 
inspector, has just informed me that there are in this city over 12,000 
people sick in bed, not counting those in military hospitals. This is at 
least 35 per cent of the present population. Quinine, the only remedy 
of avail, is sold ten times higher than in the States. Steamers coming 
to this port mostly give out soup once a day to the waiting throng. 
Fresh meat in our market sells from 50 cents to $1 a pound." 

Consul Hyatt, of Santiago de Cuba, under date of January 8, 1898: 
"Numerous dead bodies at the cemetery are carried over from day to 
day, because the sexton is unable to bury them, with his present corps 
of assistants, as fast as they come." 

Consul Hyatt, Santiago de Cuba, January 12, 1898: 
" * * * It is beyond the power of my pen to describe the situa- 
tion in eastern Cuba. Squalidity, starvation, sickness, and death meet 
one in all places. Beggars swarm our doors and stop us on the street. 
The dead in large numbers remain over from day to day in the ceme- 
teries unburied." 

Consul Hyatt, Santiago de Cuba, January 22, 1898: 

a # # * ^he m iiit a ry situation is completely overshadowed in 

importance by the starving, struggling mass whose cry is, 'Bread, or I 

perish. 7 This consulate is besieged to an extent that blocks the entrance 

and greatly retards business. They have heard that the people of the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 561 

United States are giving funds for their relief and have not the patience 
to wait. I could name three Americans here who contribute monthly 
over $300 toward feeding the poor, but it is nothing compared to the 
people's necessities. Men, women, and children, homeless and almost 
naked, roam the streets by day, begging of almost everyone they meet 
or door they pass, and sleeping at night almost anywhere they can find 
a place to lie down. If the present deatli rate is continued there would 
not be a soul left in the city at the end of five years. For the masses 
it is speedy help or sure death." 

Same, under date of February 26, 1898: 

"Rations are issued in a court attached to the consulate, the people 
being admitted by the police through a carriage driveway. 

"As I write the street is blocked by the hungry throng for nearly a 
square above and below the entrance. 

"Since writing this dispatch I have been informed that the ladies' 
relief committee have estimated that in this city alone the number who 
need help is 18,000." 

(The rations referred to in the foregoing are the relief sent from the 
United States.) 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, November 20, 1897: 

"While General Blanco has made known his purpose to relieve the 
concentrated people by allowing them to go out of the towns, I give the 
Department reasons why this permission will not give the relief claimed. 
While article 1 grants permission to this starving class to return to the 
country, article 3 abrogates it in exacting that to avail themselves of the 
privilege the places to which they go must be garrisoned. This will 
preclude over one-half of these poor unfortunates, for their homes are 
in ruins, and the sugar estates able to maintain a guard can care for but 
a small percentage of the whole. * * * I will not question the good 
intention of those now in power. It is a self-evident fact that the author- 
ities are utterly helpless to extend any relief to those who have thus far 
survived the pangs of hunger. * * * 

"So far as relates to this section of the island, the claim made by the 
Captain- General, in a letter to the Spanish minister in Washington, 
that "extensive zones of cultivation had been organized, daily rations 
are provided by the State, work is furnished,' etc., is not borne out by 
my observation." 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, November 25, 1897 : 

"Sir: With reference to the distress and deaths in this consular 
district, embracing a large part of the territory of the province, 
appended .is the official mortality list of each of the judicial districts 
comprising the province known as Cinco Villas (five towns), from 
January 1 to November 15, 1897, inclusive, as follows, viz : 

Santa Clara 27,900 

Sao-ua . 16, 583 

Cienfue.o-os 14, 263 

Remedios 11, 415 

Sancti Espiritus 5, 482 

Trinidad 4,946 

Total 80, 589 

"Add to this 25 per cent for the number of which no record has been 
kept, * * * I deem a conservative estimate will make the grand 
total 100,736 deaths. In truth, after talking with both military and 
judicial officers, I regard this rather under than above the actual deaths 
for the period stated. Undoubtedly one-half of the concentrated peo- 
36 



562 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

pie have died, and to-day Spanish soldiers are companion victims to 
the surviving noncombatants. The inclosed slip (inclosure No. 1), 
showing the number of deaths — official — in the small municipal district 
of San Juan de la Yeras, will give some idea of the rapid increase from 
month to month, as will also the clippings (inclosure No. 2) cut from 
the local papers show that the authorities no longer conceal these facts, 
as was done under the retired Captain-General. 

"This appalling death rate is mute, yet convincing proof of the terri- 
ble destruction of life under the main policy pursued in attempting to 
subjugate the island. The heavens, it would appear, weep for des- 
poiled, distressed Cuba, for during the present month the fall of rain 
has been almost phenomenal. I have to reiterate, the authorities, how- 
ever great the desire to do so, are utterly helpless to ameliorate the 
dire distress that must continue to increase. 

<<##.# Relative to furnishing protection to the mills to grind, 
how is it possible in view of the fact that the safeguard extended 
planters in making the previous crop enabled them to grind less than 
one-third of the usual yield, while the military force available to-day is 
not half in numbers as at that time. With me the conviction is firmly 
rooted that within sixty days 90 per cent of the populace will reach a 
state of craving hunger, without outside aid; nor do I feel that I am 
speaking chimerically when I include the rank and file of the Spanish 
army. The true status, as viewed at present, will bear out this opinion. 
The suffering among the troops, as well as the reconcentrados, simply 
beggars portrayal, while discontent ripens daily." 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, December 13, 1897 : 

«*■•** I have within the past few days visited five of the principal 
railroad towns in this district. The destitution is simply too harrowing 
to recite, and must become intensified each day. The death rate for the 
last month shows an increase of about 25 per cent. In these towns I 
got my information from the mayors. I learned that while an issue of 
food running from three to five days had been made, beginniug on the 
28th ultimo, consisting of 3 ounces of bacon and jerked beef and 6 
ounces rice for adults, with half this allowance for children under 14 
years, the pittance was sufficient only for one-fourth to one-tenth of the 
starving. 

"The mayors of Santa Clara, Cruces, and Santo Domingo are authority 
for stating the Captain General had ordered that after the 8th instant 
any issue of food to the concentrados be discontinued. * * * The 
mayor of Santa Clara stated to me that the Captain -General directed 
him to call on the commissary of the army for 5,000 rations for relief 
purposes, which, he said, was sufficient to feed the suffering people but 
one day. The officer's answer was he could not do so, as all Govern- 
ment supplies on hand would be required to feed the army. The mayor 
stated also that, in presenting this order to the military commander, 
he was ordered by him under no circumstances to give food to anyone 
having relatives in the insurrection, which, he said, would exclude 75 
per cent of the destitute. * * * All efforts so far to obtain relief 
by popular subscription have met with signal failure. The Cubans are 
too poverty stricken, while the Spaniards who own the wealth will con- 
tribute nothing. * * *" 

Consul Barker, Sagua, December 8, 1897, states that food, medicine, 
and clothing are required by more than 50,000 persons in his consular 
district, and that a reliable estimate of the starving in the Sagua Prov- 
ince is 100,000. * * * 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, January 31, 1898: 

"Relative to citizens of the United States residing in this consular 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 563 

district, the new administration's progress and repudiation concerning 
the abuses in vogue under the former regime reveal the following facts : 
Of those herded in the garrison towns none have been allowed to 
return to their landed estates. Some few did venture to go to their 
farms, under a pledge of protection from the military commander of 
the province, to whom I will not impute bad faith, and were driven off 
by guerrillas. 

" At my suggestion several Americans returned to the American- 
owned ' Central Santiana,' the owner having been forced to abandon 
property. Although a Government guard is stationed at the place, 
they (former tenants) were ordered to leave. Application was made to 
the military commander for authority to return unmolested, and it was 
refused. Over two months since two of our citizens notified me they 
had discovered in possession of the local guerrillas ten or twelve head 
of their horses. I addressed the military commander, asking, on proof 
of ownership, their stock be restored. Nothing has been done, while 
these American citizens, both in affluence at the breaking out of the 
rebellion, are to-day dependent upon charity. * * * " 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, March 12, 1898 : 

u # * # About a week since I received the first shipment of sup- 
plies, about 20 tons, being sent from Havana under direction of the Eed 
Cross branch in that city. All this I distributed among 10 of the 22 
towns I had managed to investigate, using none for Sagua. * * * 
About sixty days ago the mayors of these towns furnished, by request, 
this office with the number they claimed as actually destitute in their 
several municipal districts, which footed up over 50,000 persons. Esti- 
mating a decrease from death of 10.000 would leave, say, 40,000. * * * " 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, March 14, 1898 : 

"The inclosed letter from Mr. Valle, whom I have every reason to 
believe will not misrepresent the case, * * * shows that I have 
underestimated the number in my jurisdiction in need of relief. I beg 
to increase the amount required, as stated in my No. 294, from 80 to 100 
tons a month." 

(Letter referred to implored medicines and provisions.) 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, March 24, 1898: 

"Closer investigation discloses larger number destitute than esti- 
mate sent. Fifty tons needful now. Distress far greater than my 
reports show." 

Consul Barker, Sagua la Grande, March 24, 1898: 

"Sir: I visited seat of government of this province, Santa Clara, 
where I learned * * * that the number of persons in actual want 
exceeds any estimate I have sent to the Department. The distress is 
simply heartrending; whole families without clothing to hide naked- 
ness, sleeping on the bare ground without bedding of any kind, without 
food save such as we have been able to reach with provisions sent by our 
noble people; and the most distressing feature is that fully 50 per cent 
are ill, without medical attention or medicine. * •* * 1 have found 
the civil governor willing to lend every aid in his power, but he admits 
he can do nothing but assist with his civil officers in expediting the 
relief sent from the United States. The military obstruct in every way 
possible." 

Translation of the articles of General Blanco's proclamation of the 30th 
March, 1898, suspending the reconeentration. 

Article 1. From the publication of the present proclamation (bando) 
in the Gazette of Havana the reconeentration of country people through- 



564 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

out the island is hereby terminated, and they are authorized to return 
with their families to their homes, and to dedicate themselves to all kinds 
of agricultural labors. 

Article 2. The boards of relief and all civil and military authorities 
shall furnish them the means within their power to enable the rural 
population to return to their former places of residence, or those which 
they may now select, facilitating them the aid which they may respec- 
tively dispose. 

Article 3. At the instance of the council of secretaries, and through 
the department of public works, the preparation and immediate reali- 
zation of all public works necessary and useful to furnish work and 
food to the country people and their families who, through lack of 
means, truck farms, or want of agricultural implements, may not be 
able to return immediately to the fields, shall be proceeded with, as 
well as the establishment of soup kitchens, which may settle and 
cheapen such services. 

Article 4. The expenses which the compliance with this proclama- 
tion (bando) may originate, as far as they may exceed the means dis- 
posed of by the boards of relief, shall be charged to the extraordinary 
war credit. 

Article 5. All previous instructions issued regarding the reconcen- 
tration of the country people, and all others which may be in opposi- 
tion to the compliance of this proclamation, are hereby derogated. 

Havana, March 3, 1898. 

Ramon Blanco. 



REPORT OF THE SPANISH NAVAL BOARD OF INQUIRY AS TO THE 
CAUSE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE U. S. B. S. MAINE. 



[Translation.] 



.No. 33.] Legation of Spain in Washington, 

Washington, April 2, 1898. 
Mr. Secretary: I have the honor, by order of my Government/ to 
transmit to your excellency the full testimony in the inquiry instituted 
by the maritime authority of the Havana station by reason of the 
catastrophe which befell the United States ironclad Maine in that port 
in the night of the 15th of February last, which awful misfortune to 
the American people has been so deeply and sincerely lamented by the 
Spanish Government and people. 

I improve this opportunity, Mr. Secretary, to reiterate to your excel- 
lency the assurances of my highest consideration. 

Louis Polo de Bernabe. 
To the Hon. John Sherman, 

Secretary of State of the United States of America, etc. 

565 



566 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

[Translation.] 

Station of Havana, 1898. 

complete evidence in the preliminary proceedings in- 
augurated on the occasion of the catastrophe which 
befell the north american ironclad maine, in the 
harbor of havana, on the night of february 15, 1898. 

Judge in charge of the preparation of the case: Captain Don Pedro 
del Peral y Caballero. 

Secretary: Lieutenant Don Javier de Salas y Gonzalez. 

I, Don Francisco Javier de Salas y Gonzalez, lieutenant of the first 
class, secretary of the preliminary proceedings instituted in consequence 
of the blowing up of the North American ironclad Maine, of which court 
Captain Don Pedio Peral y Caballero is the judge in charge, proceeded 
to take the whole evidence in the case, which I certify, and. it is as 
follows : 

Station of Havana, 1898. 

preliminary proceedings instituted in consequence of the 
explosion which took place on the north american iron- 
clad maine on the night of february 15, 1898. 

The proceedings began on the same date. The judge in charge, Cap- 
tain Don Pedro de Peral. Secretary, Lieutenant Don Javier de Salas. 
A seal with the words: "Office of the Naval Commandant-General of 
the Station of Havana. Department of Justice." 

An explosion, followed by the burning of the North American ironclad 
Maine, having occurred in this harbor at thirty-five minutes past nine 
o'clock to-night, and in view of the urgency of the case and the want 
of officers, aides of the naval commandant, at the present moment, 
your excellency will proceed, in the capacity of judge in charge, to 
institute the proper proceedings, in conformity with the provisions of 
the law of naval military procedure now in force; and you will designate 
an officer to act in the capacity of secretary of the proceedings. 

God preserve your excellency. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. Captain Don Pedro del Peral y 
Caballero. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. 

Let this be recorded as the beginning of these proceedings. 

Pedro del Peral. [Eubricated.J 

APPOINTMENT OF SECRETARY. 

By virtue of the powers conferred upon me by the authority having 
jurisdiction in the case in appointing me judge in charge, I hereby 
appoint Lieutenant Don Francisco Javier de Salas, who possesses the 
necessary qualifications, secretary to act as such in this case. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. Pedro del Peral. [Eubricated.J 

secretary's oath. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. 
Lieutenant Don Francisco de Salas being present, I notified him of 
the appointment given him; and he, upon being informed of it, accepts 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 567 

it and swears to discharge its duties well and faithfully, and signs these 

presents in witness thereof. 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 
Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 

DECREE. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. 
The judge in charge ordered the letter of appointment of the judge 
in charge to be annexed to these proceedings, and directed that the 
eye-witnesses of the occurrence and those persons who, by reason of 
their duties, ought to be best informed as to the event, be summoned. 
His honor gave this order before me, the secretary, who certify it. 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 
Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 

record. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. 
A respectful letter was addressed to the authority having jurisdic- 
tion in the case, notifying him that Lieutenant Don Javier de Salas has 
been appointed secretary for these proceedings, and requesting his ap- 
proval. I certify it. 

Peral. [Rubricated.] 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 

DECREE. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. 
His honor ordered that his excellency, the governor-gene al of the 
island, be requested to furnish an official interpreter that he may render 
assistance at the time of the depositions of the officers and sailors of 
the American man-of-war Maine, if he has one available. His honor 
gave this order before me, the secretary, who certify it. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 
Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 

PROCEEDINGS. 

Havana, February 15, 1898. 
A respectful letter was addressed to the superior authority of the 
island in execution of the foregoing decree. I certify it. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 
Peral. [Rubricated.] 

TESTIMONY OF ENSION DON MANUEL TAMAYO. 

At Havana, February 15, 1898, the officer mentioned in the margin 
appeared before the judge in the presence of the secretary. His honor 
admonished him of his duty, to be truthful, and reminded him of the 
penalties which he would incur for the crime of perjury; after which he 
took the proper oath, and being questioned in conformity with article 
142 of the Law of Naval Military Procedure, said that his name is Don 
Manuel Tamayo y Orellano, unmarried, 26 years of age, a native of 
Cadiz, and that he has no interest in the case which is being tried. 

Being asked to state all that he knows with regard to the explosion 



568 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

which occurred an hour ago on the American inan-of-war Maine, he 
said that, happening to be the officer of the deck on board the cruiser 
Alfonso XII, he heard, at about half past nine o'clock, an explosion in 
some place very near his ship, which turned out to proceed from the 
ironclad Maine, which was anchored very near, and which at that 
moment was on the port side (of the Alfonso XII). Immediately cries 
for help were heard, whereupon all the boats which were in the water, 
together with the fifth boat, were sent to the place of the disaster, as 
well as all the private boats which were within hail of the ship, and 
succeeded in rescuing from the water twenty-nine persons, most of 
them severely injured, who were conducted to the sick bay of the ship 
and were properly attended to. 

All the efforts made to save more persons proved fruitless, as no 
others were seen in the water and nobody replied to the shouts which 
the boats directed to the ironclad, it being impossible to jump on board 
on account of the continuous explosions and the imminent danger 
incurred in the vicinity of the vessel owing to the increase of the flames, 
as, for a few minutes after the first explosion, which was the loudest, 
the ship remained in utter darkness, without any flames on the out- 
side, though they appeared a little afterwards. When the first boats 
returned with the injured men they said that the ship had sunk by the 
bow, with a great deal of injury to the rigging and on the outside, and 
that boats from the Legaspi had come tn her aid. The wounded men, 
when questioned by the witness, said that they could uot imagine how 
the catastrophe had occurred. Being asked whether the boats of his 
ship patrolled the bay every day, the witness said that one boat of the 
Alfonso XII patrolled every day from sunset to dawn, and that at 
the time of the explosion the eighth boat, commanded by the second- 
class sailor, Jose Lopez Sanchez, was on guard. 

Being asked what instructions that commander had, he said that he 
had general instructions to keep watch in the bay to prevent the traffic 
of boats not subject to the provisions of the law, and special instruc- 
tions to pay the greatest attention to the vicinity of the new floating 
dock. 

Being asked whether any violent quivering was felt on board his 
ship at the moment of the explosion, similar to that which is experi- 
enced during earthquakes, he said that nothing was felt except the 
concussion of the noise, but that the ship experienced no violent shock. 

Being asked whether he has any clue by which he can form an opin- 
ion as to the cause of the explosion, either from what he has heard or 
from what he himself has seen, he replied that, although he saw the 
explosion, he can not say what caused it, nor has he heard anyone say 
anything - that could throw any light on the matter. 

Being asked whether the Maine was lighted by electricity, he replied 
that she was. 

Being asked whether he knows whether any exercise was being prac- 
ticed on board the American vessel at the time of the accident, he said 
he did not know, but that during the day they appeared to him to be 
drilling, as he saw movements among her guns. 

At this point this deposition was suspended, with the reservation'of 
the right to continue it if necessary. The witness read it for himself, 
affirmed and ratified its contents, and signed it in witness thereof, 
together with the judge, in the presence of the secretary, who certifies it. 

Manuel Ta.mayo. [Rubricated.] 
Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 
Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 569 

TESTIMONY OF THE CHIEF BOATSWAIN, DON NICANOR MAURIS. 

At Havana on the loth February, 1898, appeared the person mentioned 
in the margin, who, being informed as to what he was about to be ques- 
tioned, swore to tell the truth, the judge calling his attention to the penal- 
ties incurred by those giving false testimony, and being asked the usual 
questions prescribed by the law, he said that his name is JNicanor 
Mauris y (iarrote, chief boatswain, married, a native of (lalieia. of 
full age, employed in the San Fernando Shears-House with the duties 
of his rank, and that he is not directly or indirectly interested in the 
case which is being tried. 

Being asked to state all that he knows with regard to the explosion 
which took place on the North American ship Maine, he said that, 
after 9.30 p. m., he heard a violent explosion in the bay; that he left 
his house immediately, and saw that it had taken place on the Maine; 
he noticed that a number of lights were ascending in a nearly vertical 
direction, lights of red and blue colors, which exploded with little noise 
and without much force. The ship was in the dark at that moment, 
but, a little afterwards, Haines became visible, and detonation resem- 
bling those of small shells, like revolver shells, began to be heard. 
Immediately after the explosion the boats were manned by order of the 
commandant of the shears, and went to the place of the accident, 
returning with two wounded men in one boat and four in another, and 
on the second trip, with three in one boat and two in the other. These 
injured meu were immediately attended to in the barracks of the shears. 

Being asked whether, at the moment of the explosion, he perceived a 
violent agitation of the ground, similar, if not in its intensity, at least 
in its effects, to that produced by earthquakes, he said that he did not, 
that he noticed only the noise and the brightness (illumination). 

Being asked whether any articles hurled up by the explosion fell in 
the shears yard, he replied, "No, nor in the neighborhood either." 

Being asked whether he knows anything or has heard anything said 
as to the causes of the catastrophe, he replied that he knew nothing 
and has heard nothing said. 

At this point this deposition was suspended, with the reservation 
of the right to continue it, if necessary. The witness read it, affirmed 
and ratified its contents, and signed it, with the judge, in the presence 
of the secretary, who certifies it. 

Nicanor Mauris. [Rubricated.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 

Javier de Sal as. [Rubricated.] 

TESTIMONY OF FIRST LIEUTENANT DON JULIO PEREZ Y PERERA. 

At Havana, on the 15th February, 1898, appeared in this court the 
officer mentioned in the margin, who, after being informed as to what he 
was about to be questioned, swore to tell the truth, and was admonished 
as to the penalties inclined by those giving false testimony. 

Being asked the questions prescribed by the law, he said that his 
name is Don Julio Perez y Perera, first lieutenant in the navy, now in 
command of the machina (shears) of San Fernando, married, and of 
full age. 

Being requested to state all that he knew with regard to the explo- 
sion on the Maine, he said that he was standing at the door of his 
house, situated facing the bay, of one story, on the lauds of the navy, 
near the machina of San Fernando, and that, as he was necessarily 



570 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

looking toward the place where the Maine was anchored, he saw a 
most brilliant illumination ascending from the ship at the same time 
that a terrible explosion occurred; that afterwards, hearing shrieks 
and seeing smoke, he took the necessary steps to succor the victims who 
might be found. 

Being asked whether he had any clue from which the causes of the 
catastrophe might be conjectured, lie said that lie had none, but that 
he thought that it had its origin in one of the magazines of the ship, 
from the shape in which he saw the smoke, the illumination, and the 
colored gases rise in the air. 

Being asked if he noticed any upward movement in the water around 
the vessel, he replied that the bay was perfectly smooth, and that he 
saw no movement in the water nor any disturbance. 

At this point the present deposition was suspended, the witness read 
it, affirmed and ratified its contents, and signed it, with the judge, in 
the presence of the secretary, who certifies it. 

Julio Perez y Perera. [Rubricated.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 

TESTIMONY OF ENSIGN DON JUAN RAPALLO. 

At Havaua, on the 15th February, 1898, appeared in this court the 
officer mentioned in the margin, who was notified as to what he was 
about to be questioned, and swore to tell the truth, his attention being 
called to the penalties incurred by those giving false testimony, and, 
being asked the questions prescribed by the law, he said that his name 
is Don Juan Rapallo y Ortis, ensign in the navy, serving on the cruiser 
Alfonso XII, unmarried, of full age. 

Being requested to state what he knew with regard to the event in 
question, he said that while he was resting in the cabin of the ship 
he heard a tremendous explosion, the locality of which he could not 
even conjecture; that he went on deck immediately, and saw the Maine 
sending up flames and heard loud shrieks for help coming from her; 
that all the available boats were sent from his ship and the projectors 
were lighted. 

Being asked whether he had formed any opinion as to the causes of 
the catastrophe, he replied that he thought that au explosion had been 
begun in the magazines of the ship, more probably in the torpedo mag- 
azine than in that of the shells and ammunition. . 

Being asked whether he had seen that day any manoeuvre or move- 
ment indicating that some drill was being conducted, he said that he 
had seen to-day a kind of preparation for battle, in which all the guns 
and the boat drill had a part. 

At this point this deposition was suspended; the witness read it, 
affirmed and rat lied its contents, and signed it with the judge in charge, 
in the presence of the secretary, who certifies it. 

Juan Rapallo. [Rubricated.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 

TESTIMONY OF THE SAILOR JOSE BALECIRO REY. 

At Havana, on the loth February, 1S9S, appeared the person men- 
tioned in the margin, who was informed as to what he was about to be 
questioned, and swore to tell the truth. His attention was called to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 571 

the penalties incurred by those giving false testimony, and being- asked 
the questions prescribed by law, lie said that his name is Jose Bale- 
ciro Bey, sailor of the second class in the crew of the Alfonso XII, 
unmarried, 20 years of age, and that he has no direct or indirect interest 
in this case. 

Being asked to state all that he knew with regard to the explosion 
on the Maine, he said that he was on duty in the port gangway and 
saw the Maine on her starboard side; that, at exactly half past nine 
o'clock, he heard a drum beat (toque) on board the American, as if for 
silence, and that it wanted a few minutes of being a quarter to 10 o'clock, 
when he heard a tremendous explosion, and saw a very great blaze, like 
that of many skyrockets, going directly upwards, and then they scat- 
tered; that it ascended from about the center of the ship, although, at 
first, he did not know, and had no idea, whence it came; that the ship 
then became dark, and that, near the gangway where he was, a thing 
resembling a large splinter fell in the water, and that, immediately 
afterwards, he saw fire on the American man-of-war, which was already 
sinking, although it did not appear so at first, and that all the boats 
were immediately sent from his ship, and brought back injured men. 

Being asked whether he noticed any movement in the water, he said 
that he did not. 

At this point, this deposition was suspended; the witness read it for 
himself, affirmed and ratified its contents, and signed it with the judge 
and secretary, who certifies it. 

Jose Baleciro Rey. [Rubricated.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 

TESTIMONY OP THE SAILOR JOSE CREST AR ZARALDO. 

At Havana, on the loth February, 1898, appeared in this court the 
person mentioned in the margin, who was informed as to what he was 
about to be questioned and swore to tell the truth. His attentiou was 
called to the penalties incurred by those giving false testimony, and 
being asked the questions prescribed by law, he said that his name is 
Jose Crestar Zaraldo, sailor of the second class, apprentice gunner in 
the crew of the Alfonso XII, 19 years of age. 

Being requested to state what he knew as to the catastrophe which 
occurred on board the Maine, he said that he was ou duty at the castle 
since 8 o'clock at night, and that all at once, at a little past half past 
nine, he heard a very loud explosion, and saw a very bright blaze, which 
dazzled him at first, but that he then saw that it was on the Maine. 

At this moment the ship was seen to sink, and then explosions were 
heard, continuing for sqjue time; boats were ordered off from the ves- 
sel and returned with wounded men. Being asked whether he noticed 
any movement in the water, he replied that he did not; that it con- 
tinued as calm as before. 

Thereupon this declaration was closed, and having read it through, 
and having affirmed and sworn to its contents, and signed the same in 
proof thereof, together with the judge and the undersigned secretary, 
who certifies to the same. 

Jose Crestar. [Rubric] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubric] 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 



572 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

DECLARATION OF THE SEAMAN JOSE GALLEGO CARRERAS. 

At Havana on February 15, 1898, appeared before the judge the 
person named in the margin who, being advised of the interrogatories 
to be put to him, swore that he would give true testimony and also 
having been warned of the penalty of perjury and being asked the 
general iuterrogatories required by law, declared that his name was 
Jose Gallego Carreras, first-class seaman of the crew of the Alfonso 
XII, and artillery apprentice, that he was lit years old, a native of 
Mesgardos, province of Corufia. 

Being requested to tell what he knew concerning the Maine disaster, 
he replied that he was on watch at the starboard gangway, and that, 
as the Maine was on the other side, he only noticed a very loud explo- 
sion, a great deal of smoke mingled with shining sparks and that he 
heard and saw nothing more. 

Thereupon this declaration was closed, which the declarant read, and 
affirmed and swore to the same and signed the same with the judge 
and the undersigned secretary who certifies to the same. 

Jose Gallego. [Rubric] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubric. | 

Javier de Sal as. [Rubric] 

Havana, February 16, 1898. 
Note. — Don Luis Freixedas, interpreter of the Government, having 
appeared in consequence of the summons on page 4, was ordered to 
appear on the next day, and note is made of the same to which I, as 
secretary, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

ORDERS. 

HAVANA, February 16, 1898. 
His honor directed that the consul of the United States should be 
requested, through H. E. the commandant general, to allow the pres- 
ence in this court of certain officers and seamen of the crew of the 
Maine, survivors of the catastrophe, in order that their testimony might 
be taken in the present case. Thus his honor directs, in the presence 
of me, secretary, to which I certify. The interlined part is genuine. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Pedro del Peral. [Rubric] 

HAVANA, February 16, 1898. 
Note. — Due notice was given the supreme iiuthority with a view to 
carrying out the previous orders of the court. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubricj 

NOTE OF THE TESTIMONY OF DEPUTY HEALTH INSPECTOR OF THE 
NAVY DON JUAN LOPEZ PEREZ. 

At Havana, on February lt>, 1898, appeared before the judge and the 
undersigned secretary, the officer named in the margin, who, being 
advised of the interrogatories which were to be put to him, swore that 
he would give true testimony, and having been warned of the punish- 
ment due to perjury, and having been asked the general interrogatories 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 573 

required bylaw, replied that bis name was Don Juan Lopez Perez; 
that be was of age, and deputy health inspector of the first class of the 
navy, and at the present time chief of the branch at the station. 

Being asked to declare what number of wounded men coming from 
the disaster on the Maine he attended during the last night, and in 
regard to the nature of the wounds which he tended, he said that he 
assisted in and directed the attendance of all the wounded that came 
to the u Machina," giving his attention on the arrival of an adequate 
medical personnel to organizing the ambulance and direction services 
as chief of the health service at the station. Being asked whether he 
was able to attend to all these cases with all the requisite implements, 
he said " Yes," for besides the supplies of the navy, the army, and the 
fire brigade several private pharmacists supplied at ouce whatever 
was needed. Being asked whether he has heard either the said wounded 
people or the persons communicating with them say anything in relation 
to the cause that may have occasioned the disaster, he said that he 
does not know English, but he heard one of the wounded men say that 
the cause of the event was the blowing up of the powder magazine, a 
declaration which I did not understand directly for the reason above 
given, but which I knew by the medium of a civilian acquainted with 
the language, who was there. 

Being asked whether he can give any information as to who that 
civilian was and whether he remembered the wounded man who made 
the statement, he said that it was impossible for him to say accurately 
anything, for at that time of confusion he endeavored chiefly to attend 
to the organization of the service. Beiug asked whether he knows 
approximately the number of wounded men attended under Ins direc- 
tion, he said that approximately some twenty-five were attended in the 
"Machina," he directing that the most seriously hurt be transported to 
the San Ambrosio hospital, and that those less hurt be transported 
to that of Alfonso XIII, the injuries being generally the result of wide 
but not deep burns. 

At this stage this declaration was suspended, the witness reading it, 
fully affirming it, and ratifying its contents and signing it with the 
judge iu the presence of the secretary, who certified it. 

Juan Lopez Perez. [Sign manual.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Sign manual.] 

Javier de Saas. [Sign manual.] 

ORDER. 

At Havana, on the sixteenth of February, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-eight, his honor determined to address a polite official 
note to the jurisdictional authority requesting for an examination of 
the bottom of the American ship the requisite authority and assistance. 
So his honor dictated before me, the secretary, who certifies. 

Javier de Saas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

At Havana, on the sixteenth of February, one thousand eight hundred 
and ninety-eight, there was delivered to the most excellent commander- 
general of the station a polite note, in compliance with and to the ends 
of the beforegoing order. I so certify. 

Javer de Saas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 



574 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

DEPOSITION OF THE CHIEF SURGEON OF THE FLEET D, AUGUSTIN 

MACHORRO. 

At Havana, on the sixteenth of February, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-eight, appeared before this court the officer named in 
the margin, who, being advised of the object for which his deposition 
was wanted, swore to tell the truth, he being reminded of the penalties 
incurred by those who give false testimony, and being asked the usual 
question, declared himself his name to be Don Augustin Machorro y 
Amenabar, of full age, physician in chief of the navy, employed on board 
of the gunboat Magallanes, and married. 

When asked whether he treated any of the wounded men from the 
Maine, and was directed, if so, to tell the number and kind of the 
wounds, as well as all that he knew in connection with the disaster, he 
said that from the first moment when he was present on board of the 
Machina he treated several of the wounded, all of them belonging to the 
crew of the ironclad Maine, that they presented, as their general charac- 
ter, extensive and superficial burns, which covered almost all the exposed 
parts, principally face, arms, and legs; that after he had finished treat- 
ing those who were on board of the Machina, in which he was assisted 
by several other physicians belonging to the staff, that they likewise 
went on board of the cruiser Alfonso XII, where he also treated per- 
sons who had received similar injuries; that he afterwards went on 
board of the American steamer City of Washington, where he saw 24 
seamen who had received slight wounds, almost all of them being 
burns and contusions which had been treated by the jmysicians 
attached to the Maine, who was already there; that those who were 
treated by him personally were 4 or 5 on board of the Machina and 
the same number on board of the Alfonso XII, although we can not 
state the precise number. As to the causes, he was unable to say what 
they were, and when he asked the surgeon on board the American war 
ship, that surgeon told him the same thing. 

This deposition stopped here and the deponent read it and ratified its 
contents, signing it with his honor the judge and with me, the clerk of 
the court, who certify. 

Augustin Machorra. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF THE PHYSICIAN IN CHIEF OF THE NAVY, DON 
GABRIEL LOPEZ MARTIN. 

In the city of Havana, on the 16th of February, 1898, appeared before 
this court the aforesaid officer, who, being reminded of the reason 
why his deposition was needed, made oath that he would tell the truth, 
and having been informed of the penalties incurred by a j>erson who 
bears false testimony, he was asked the usual preliminary questions. 
He said that his name was Don Gabriel Lopez Martin ; that he was 
physician in chief of the navy, employed at this naval station; that he 
was married, and of full age. 

Being asked whether he attended the wounded men yesterday who 
had received their wounds in consequence of the disaster to the Maine, 
and what was the number and kind of said wounds, and being requested 
to tell all that he knew in connection with the matter, he said that when 
he heard the explosion, in his house in the navy-yard where he was, 
and suspecting that it might be some accident of importance in the bay, 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 575 

which he did judging- from the direction in which he saw the light of the 
explosion, he went to the commandant of the navy-yard, and having 
there been informed of the orders received from the commandant-general, 
he went on board of the Machina and weut to her commander, placing 
himself at his orders, and went to the part of the vessel occupied by the 
sailors where the wounded were lodged, treating those who were brought 
on board after he arrived at 2 o'clock a. m., treating some 15 or 20 exten- 
sive burns of all grades and in all parts of the body, caused, for the most 
part, by the direct action of the flames; he observed in some of them 
the implantation of grains of powder in various parts of their bodies. 

When asked whether he had seen in any seaman or wounded man 
anything that could throw light upon the causes of the disaster, he 
said that he heard from a person who acted as interpreter that the 
causes of the disaster were not known, and that he heard 3 or 4 of the 
wounded men say that they had no precise knowledge of the fact; that 
only one, the last one treated, whose wound was less serious, said that 
it must have been caused by the explosion of a powder magazine; that 
he did not remember who the person was who acted as interpreter, 
nor did he remember who the wounded man was; but he thought that 
he was taken immediately afterwards to the Hospital of San Ambrosio. 

This deposition stopped here; deponent read it, ratified its contents, 
and signed it with his honor the judge and with me, the clerk of the 
court, who certifies. 

Gabriel Lopez. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF DON GUILLERMO FERRAG-UT, NAVAL EISSIGN. 

In the city of Havana, on the 16th of February, 1898, appeared the 
aforesaid officer, who, being admonished concerning that which he was 
to be questioned upon, made oath that he would tell the truth. He was 
then reminded of the penalties incurred by anyone who testifies falsely, 
and being asked the usual preliminary questions, he said that his name 
was Don Guillenno Ferragut y Sbort, a native of Palma, Majorca, 22 
years of age, unmarried, naval ensign, doing duty on board of the war 
transport Legazpi, which anchored in the bay last night near to the 
Maine. 

When asked to state what he knew concerning the case before the 
court, he said that he was doing guard duty on board of his vessel, 
which was anchored very near the Maine, and that being in the officers' 
room at about half past 9 o'clock p. m., he heard a great noise, accom- 
panied by a very bright light, which was caused beyond a doubt by a 
tremendous explosion, and also by the fall of objects on board and by 
the falling of a great number of glasses, which from the very first led 
him to suppose that a disaster had occurred on board. A moment's 
reflection, however, was sufficient to convince him that the disaster 
had not occurred on board of his own vessel. He immediately rau up 
on deck and got there in time to see the things thrown into the air by the 
explosion. It produced a horrible effect upon him to see the Maine all 
on fire, while continual detonations and explosions of minor importance 
were going on, these latter explosions succeeding the first great one. 
He quickly ran to rouse the crew and they were already up and came 
to meet him, all of them without one exception, being desirous to lend 
their services at once. They immediately went in the fishing boat and 
the fifth boat, being unable to go in the third boat because that was 
entirely submerged. They got into the boats with extraordinary rapid- 



576 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

ity; less than five minutes elapsed between the time of the explosion 
and the time when the last of the boats was there rendering aid. It 
was afterwards learned that our boats were the first to arrive. We 
sent our small boat to the side of the Machina in case the captain of 
that vessel desired to come on board. Being - asked whether at the time 
when the explosion took place, or soon afterwards, he had observed any 
motion in the water and whether the vessel suffered any shock or shak- 
ing" up thereby, he said that he had not noticed anything of the kind 
whatever. Being asked what further measures he took, he said : That 
with the men who remained with him he cleared the vessel to make ready 
for a fire because many inflammable objects kept falling on board of the 
Legazpi. 

As soon as these precautions had been taken, he observed that the 
third boat was sinking because a board had been knocked out of it, 
whereupon he ordered that every effort should be made to prevent its 
loss ; that the damage was caused by a piece of iron apparently from 
a platform such as those which are used for getting on board, and that 
also a large piece fell on the awning, which, owing to the fact that it 
was seen at once, caused only a few burns and other slight injuries; 
moreover, many glasses in the skylights were broken. The boats of 
the vessel lent, according to the statements of the men in charge of 
them, the following services: The first made fast to the Maine aft, took 
up a wounded man, three of the third boat, and three more from one of 
the American boats, without allowing it to make fast alongside; in 
view of the fact that the surgeon of the vessel was on shore, he sent it 
to the infirmary of the Machina. He made another trip without any 
result. The fifth, which was the first that left, found on its trip two 
men in the water, whom it picked up, and on reaching the vessel, 
another, whom it turned over to the first boat. 

After an explosion, which was one of those that followed, an officer 
of the ship from the Maine, speaking Spanish, ordered them not to remain 
fastened alongside. The Chinchorro (fishing boat) took up 7 men, one 
of whom was very seriously wounded, and took them on board; they 
were supplied with clothing and were sent to the Machina to have their 
wounds treated. All the boats, moreover, went around the vessel sev- 
eral times for the purpose of exploration and then they all retired; ours 
did the same. A boat of the Maine afterwards came alongside with 4 
sailors in it, who were supplied with clothing by the Spanish seamen, 
who gave them their own, and who also gave them brandy, and sent 
them to the Machina in one of the ship's boats, the boat of the Maine 
remaining on board. 

This deposition stopped here. Deponent read all of it, ratified its 
contents, and signed it with his honor the judge and with the present 
clerk of the court who certifies. 

Guillermo Ferragut. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

JUDICIAL ACT. 

In the city of Havana, on the lGth of February, 1898, the bay was 
searched in order to see if anything from the explosion could be found. 
Remnants of the vessel were found, but no dead fish, which formed the 
principal object of this inspection the result of which is hereby judicially 
stated. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 577 

ORDER. 

Ill the city of Havana, on the 16th of February, 1898, his honor 
the judge having received a communication from the warden of the 
morgue stating that it was extremely urgent that the bodies, which 
had accumulated in that establishment from on board the Maine should 
be buried at once, his honor decided to append said communication to 
the other papers in this case, and to state in reply that in anticipation 
of this case his excellency the commandant-general of the naval station 
has already, in all probability, made suitable arrangements, he having 
been consulted in concert with the United States consul. His honor 
so ordered before me the notary who certifies. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 

JUDICIAL ACT. 

Havana, February 16, 1898. 
A communication was sent to the officer in charge of the morgue, 
containing the foregoing order, and his communication was added to 
the other papers in this case. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF JOS£ LOPEZ SANCHEZ, SEAMAN. 

In the city of Havana, on the 16th of February, 1898, appeared before 
this court the above-named person, who, having been told concerning 
what he was to be questioned about, made oath that he would tell the 
truth, having been warned of the penalty incurred by any witness who 
declares falsely. Having been asked the usual preliminary questions, 
he said that his name was Jose Lopez Sanchez; a second-class seaman 
belonging to the crew of the Alfonso XII; 21 years of age, and unmarried. 
He stated that he had no interest whatever in the case before the court. 

Being asked whether he was in charge of the boat which made the 
round, he said "Yes." Being asked what instructions he had and 
whether he was under instructions to watch the bay, he said "Yes, and 
principally near to the dock." That near the dock and without seeing 
the Maine they heard the explosion, thinking that it was in the dock; 
but as soon as they saw that it was the American ship they went near 
it to see if their assistance was needed. When asked whether he 
observed any motion of the waters he said that he had observed none. 

This deposition stopped here. It was then read by the clerk of the 
court and the deponent ratified it, making the sign of the cross, because 
he was unable to write, with his honor the judge and the present clerk 
of the court, who certifies. 

[A cross.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

ORDER. 

In the city of Havana, on the 16th of February, 1898, his honor the 
judge, thinking proper to hear the commandants of engineers and 
artillery of the naval station and the commandant of the torpedo bri- 
gade, in order that he might form a more correct opinion of the fact, 
31 



578 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

resolved to convoke them in a meeting on the 17th instant at 9 a. m. It 
was so ordered by his honor before me, the secretary, who certifies. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 

JUDICIAL ACT. 

Havana, February 16, 1898. 
Communications were addressed to the commandant of the navy-yard 
and the commandant of the torpedo brigade for the purpose stated in 
the foregoing order. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF ENQIQUE IGLESIAS, FIRST-CLASS SEAMAN. 

In the city of Havana, on the 16th of February, 1898, appeared the 
person above named, who, being told what he was going to be ques- 
tioned about, made oath that he would tell the truth, and being warned 
of the penalties incurred by any witness who gives false testimony, and 
being asked the usual preliminary questions, he said that his name 
was Enqique Iglesias Anido, 21 years of age, and a first-class seaman 
on board the Legazpi. 

Being requested to state all that he knew about the explosion onboard 
the Maine, he said that he was on watch on deck, and that shortly after 
half past 9 o'clock he heard a tremendous report and saw fire near the 
center of the ship, which was sinking, and that he then heard separate 
reports for some little time. 

This deposition stopped here, it being read to him by the clerk, and 
he ratifying its contents, making the sign of the cross, being unable to 
write, with the judge and with the secretary, who certifies. 

[A cross.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

judicial ACT. 

In the city of Havana, on the 17th February, 1898, the commandant 
of engineers, the commandant of artillery, and the commandant of 
the torpedo brigade of the naval station having met, his honor the judge 
and the present clerk of the court went in a boat belonging to the 
Alfonso XII, which had been assigned to them for this purpose, near 
to the American war ship Maine for the purpose of making such an 
ocular inspection as should furnish data that should render it possible 
to form a correct opinion, or an approximately correct one, of the 
occurrence concerning which they will sign a separate paper or cer- 
tificate. 

In testimony whereof, this fact is stated, to which I, the clerk of the 
court, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 



affairs in cuba. 579 

Office of the Warden of the Morgue, 

Havana, February 16, 1898. 
I have the honor to inform yonr honor that there being a large num- 
ber of dead bodies from the Maine in the establishment under my 
charge, and the decomposition of these bodies being not only injurious 
to public health but the agglomeration of corpses likewise being dan- 
gerous, I trust your Excellency will order their burial, or if not, that 
you will issue suitable orders. 

God guard your honor many years. 

Francisco Obregon Mayon. 
To his honor the Examining Judge. 

JUDICIAL ACT. 

In the city of Havana on the 17th February, 1898. Don Elias Iriartei 
commandant of artillery, of the navy, and chief officer of this branch in 
the naval station, Don Ambrosio Monterro, engineer, chief officer of 
engineers of the naval station, and Don Francisco Benavente, naval 
lieutenant, acting commander of the torpedo brigade of the naval sta- 
tion, before the examining judge and the secretary, said: That from the 
ocular inspection which they were able to make from the boat there was 
reason to conclude that the explosion was one of the greatest magnitude, 
and that it took place in one of the forward powder magazines, situated 
between the foremast aud the forward bulkheads of the boiler room; by 
this explosion the upper deck throughout the said extent was torn off 
and hurled backwards, knocking down the smokestacks and crushing 
the superstructure which it found, and the foremast and a portion of the 
deck was hurled forward. The hinder part apparently sustained no 
injury, for even the glasses of the skylights are intact, and it may be 
stated by way of recapitulation, from the effects observed, that the 
explosion was on the inside. Until a minute examination of the inside 
and outside of the hull can be made, and until data are available con- 
cerning the interior service of the vessel at the time of the occurrence — 
until then the undersigned can not state with precision the form and 
manner in which the explosion took place. 

Francisco Denavente. [Flourish.] 
Ambrosio Monterro. [Flourish.] 
Elias de Iriarte. [Flourish.] 
Pedro del Paral. [Flourish.] 
Before me, Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

ORDER. 

In the city of Havana on the 17th of February, 1898, his honor? 
the judge, knowing that on board the mail steamer Colon anchored in 
the bay several wounded persons from the Maine had been treated, 
resolved to go on board of the aforesaid vessel, accompanied by the 
clerk of the court, for the purpose of receiving the depositions of the 
captain and physician, with a view to investigating whether it was pos- 
sible to learn the causes of the disaster from the statements of the 
wounded men. As the persons in question were not then on board, his 
honor, the judge, ordered that they should be summoned to appear 
before the court to-morrow. 

It was so ordered by his honor before me, the clerk of the court, who 
certifies. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 



580 AFFAIRS Itf CUBA. 

JUDICIAL ACT. 

Havana, February 17, 1898. 
A communication was sent to the consignees of the mail steamers of 
Lopez for the purpose mentioned in the foregoing judicial act. 
I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF DON LUIS CAMPS, CAPTAIN OF THE MAIL STEAMER 

COLON. 

In the city of Havana, on the 18th February, 1898, appeared before 
this court the person above named, who, being informed of the matter 
concerning which he was to be questioned, made oath that he would 
tell the truth, he being warned of the penalties incurred by anyone who 
bears false witness, and being asked the usual preliminary questions, 
he said that his name was Don Luis Camps y Hechevarria, a native of 
Santiago de Cuba; of full age, and captain of the mail steamer Colon, 
owned by the Transatlantic Company ; he said that he had no interest in 
the case before the court, either direct or indirect. Being asked con- 
cerning the number of wounded from the Maine who were cared for on 
board of the vessel under his command, he said that they were three in 
number; that they were brought by the boat of the mail steamer Mexico, 
of the same company, two of them being very severely wounded, and the 
removal of one of them to the shore being impossible; he said that 
the other two were sent ashore after they had received the first 
treatment. 

Being asked whether any of those wounded men had made any state- 
ment with regard to the disaster, he said that at first they said noth- 
ing, but that on the next day the man who had remained on board of 
his vessel said that the disaster had been caused by the explosion of 
the boiler of the dynamo. When asked whether he knew the name 
of the wounded man who made this statement and in what capacity he 
was employed on board of the Maine, he said that he thought his name 
was Frank Freixa, and that he was a Swede by birth and a seaman by 
profession. When asked whether the boats of his vessel went to the 
scene of the disaster, he said that at the first moment the boat that was 
in the water was sent, but that it withdrew when the second explosion 
took place without having effected anything. 

This deposition stopped here, and deponent read and ratified it, sign- 
ing it with his honor the judge, and the present clerk of the court, who 
certifies. 

L. Camps. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Flourish." 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish. 

DEPOSITION OF THE PHYSICIAN ON BOARD OF THE MAIL STEAMER 
COLON, DON JOSE MARIA ACUNA. 

In the city of Havana, on the 18th of February, 1898, appeared 
before this court the person above named, who, being informed 
of the matter concerning which he was to be questioned, made oath 
that he would tell the truth, being reminded of the penalties incurred 
by anyone who declares falsely, and being asked the usual preliminary 
questions, he said that his name was Don Jose Maria Acuiia y Suarez; 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 581 

a native of Cadiz; married; of full age, and at the present time a phy- 
sician on board the mail steamer Colon; he further stated that he was 
not interested, either directly or indirectly, in the case now before the 
court. 

Being asked whether he had treated any of the wounded men 
from the Maine, he said that he treated all who were brought on board 
the steamer Colon, who were three in number, and all of whom had 
received extensive burns of the first and second grade, and one of 
whom had received contusions in the occipital region and a fracture of 
the left clavicle, and that there was another who could not be taken 
ashore, in whom a crepitation was observed in the movement of the 
heel of the right foot, which led him to suspect that there was a frac- 
ture. 

Being asked whether he heard statements from any of them that 
could show the cause of the disaster, he said " No." Being asked 
whether the state of the wounded man was then such as to permit his 
removal to the shore, he said "Yes." Being asked whether any officer 
or person from the ironclad Maine or from any other American vessel 
or any person sent by the American consul had come on board of the 
Colon for the purpose of ascertaining the name and class of the wounded 
man, he said " No," so far as he knew. Being asked whether he knew 
the names of the wounded men, he said that he thought he remembered 
only that of the man who was still on board, which was Frank Freixas. 

The deposition stopped here, the witness reading it thoroughly, affirm- 
ing and ratifying its contents and signing it, with the judge and sec- 
retary present, which I certify. 

Jose Maria Scuna. [Flourish.] 

Padro del Peral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

ORDER. 

At Havana, on the eighteenth of February, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-eight, the honorable Judge ordered, to prevent the 
approach of vessels to the wreck of the Maine, excepting war vessels, 
Spanish and American, and those bearing especial permit, fixing an 
extent of a hundred meters as a line of protection round the vessel, 
sending to that effect a polite letter to the superior authority, in order 
that he should provide what was proper with respect to the patrol serv- 
ice and other guard duty, so that one or several officers appointed for 
the purpose might watch those'boats and recognize suspicious vessels. 

His honor thus ordered before me, the secretary. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, the eighteenth of February, one thousand eight hundred 
and ninety-eight, two letters were dispatched to the commander- general 
of the port, to the ends indicated in the above order. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish. 

DEPOSITION OF PASCUAL FERRER, PORT PILOT. 

At Havana, on the eighteenth of February, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-eight, appeared in this court the individual named in 
the margin, who, notified of the subject on which he was to be ques- 



582 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

tioned, swore to tell the truth. He appeared, summoned orally a few 
moments previous, and he was informed of the penalties incurred by- 
anyone giving false testimony, and questioned as to his legal com- 
petency to testify. He said his name was Pascual Ferrer y Juan, a 
native of Palma de Mallorca, a bachelor, and of age, who stated that 
he had no interest, direct or indirect, in the cause being tried. 

Asked if he belonged to the corporation of Pilots of the Port of 
Havana, he said no, but he is an auxiliary and coast pilot. 

Asked if it was he that brought in the American steamer City of 
Washington on the night of the fifteenth of February, and, if so, at 
what o'clock did he do it, he said that, as auxiliary and substitute, it 
was his turn to admit the steamer City of Washington, about eight 
o'clock entering it into port and leaving it fastened to the buoy on the 
port side of the Maine about nine o'clock. 

Asked if he noticed anything irregular on the Maine, he said no, that 
the Maine was lighted with electricity, and music of accordions and 
people's voices were heard. 

Asked to state what he may know about the explosion, he said that 
after anchoring the Washington a Cuban young lady, who spoke Eng- 
lish and who was a passenger, went to the cabin (cainara), where she 
began to play the piano, and shortly after half past nine o'clock, while 
listening to her, he heard on the Maine a noise as of many rockets, but 
nothing came outside; that on looking he saw a light towards the bow 
and simultaneously a noise like two cannon reports; likewise inside, 
followed by a tremendous noise and by the flight through the air, in a 
most vivid fire, of the foremast, the deck, and a thousand things; that 
then he retired, as did all those who were outside, to skelter themselves 
from the shower of things that were falling upon the steamer, and when 
they looked again at the Maine they saw her on fire, the bow sub- 
merged; that this was seen at the time of the great explosion, and they 
heard the cries of the victims. 

Asked what did his vessel do on seeing this, he said that it was 
ordered to lower the boats to give help in the disaster, and while low- 
ering the first there arrived a felucca and longboat from the Maine with 
captains (Jefes), officers, and seamen; and after the commander of the 
Maine, who was in uniform and without his cap, had spoken with the 
captain, the latter came to declarer and asked if he could change his 
anchorage, as he did not like being there, to which the deponent replied 
there was no objection, loosening the chain and anchoring in front of 
the first post of the wharf of San Jose. Asked if after the explosion 
he saw dead fish or knows if there had been any, he said no. Asked 
if at the moment of the explosion or some instants after there was felt 
any violent motion in the water, he said no. 

At this point this declaration was suspended, it being read by depo- 
nent, its contents being affirmed and ratified, he signing it with the 
judge and secretary present. I certify. 

Pascual F. Juan. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

ORDER. 

At Havana, on the eighteenth of February, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-eight, his honor directed to request the commander- 
general of the station to obtain from the commander of the Maine direct, 
or through the consul of the United States at this capital, exact par- 
ticulars as to the quantity of explosive materials that still remain in 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 583 

the unburnt portion of the Maine, in order to proceed, if necessary, to 
the extraction by divers of the material still existing, advising hiin to 
represent to the consul the urgency for his reply. His honor proceeded 
to do so, before me, the secretary. I certify. 

Jaires be Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 

MINUTE. 

At Havana, the eighteenth of February, one thousand eight hundred 
and ninety-eight, the letter referred to in the above order was dispatched. 
I certify. 

Jaires de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 

MINUTE. 

At Havana, on the eighteenth of February, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-eight, at two o'clock p. m., news was received of the 
death of those of the crew of the Maine that were left on the steamer 
Colon. This is made to appear in the proceeding. I certify. 

Jaires de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, on the eighteenth of February, one thousand eight hundred 
and ninety-eight, letters were sent to the commanders of Alfonso XII 
and Legaspi in order to forward to the court a report of the members of 
the crew of the Maine saved by the men of their vessels and of the indi- 
viduals on their boats who may have distinguished themselves in this 
work. I certify. 

Jaires de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish. | 

War Transport Legazpi, Commander's Office. 

In answer to your respected letter of to-day I have the honor to state 
that the number of the wrecked men picked up by the boats of this ves- 
sel belonging to the complement of the battle ship Maine were: The first 
boat went alongside the stern of the Maine and picked up from there a 
wounded man, three from the third boat, and three others from one of 
the American boats, who were sent to the Shears House. The fifth boat 
found on the way two men in the water, and on reaching the other 
boat those that delivered it to the first boat leaving the side of the 
Maine and in obedience to orders from an American officer. The fish- 
ing smack picked up seven men, who were brought on board. Assist- 
ance was given them and clothing furnished. They were afterwards 
sent to the Machina. 

A boat from the Maine containing four of the wrecked sailors came 
to the side of the ship. They were taken on board and clothing given 
to them. Afterwards they were rubbed with rum, and a glass of 
brandy was given to each one of them. After this they were sent to 
the cockpit of the Machina, as some of them were quite bruised. The 
boat was left on board. The doctor of this vessel, second physician 
Don Eamon Eobles, as well as the assistant, Don Juan Aragon, ren- 
dered from the very first moment all necessary aid in the infirmary 



584 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

that was established on the Machina. Among those who distinguished 
themselves I will mention in the first place the officer on guard, Mid- 
shipman Don Guillermo Farragut, who, through timely orders, suc- 
ceeded in having in a few moments all the boats alongside of the Maine, 
and the success of saving the wrecked crew was due to this rapid action. 
Regarding the boat's crew, I will mention, among those who contributed 
efficaciously to this end, the following: The carpenter of the vessel, 
Jesus Pencla, who, without having any official position in the service, 
contributed effectively to the rescue, being the first one to take a boat; 
the third boatswains Niconte Cortes and Andres Posada, who com- 
manded the first and second boats; the coxswains Juan Garcia and 
Sebastian Martinez, who commanded the fishing smack and the fifth 
boat; the first coxswain Rudesindo Beeciro; the second coxswains 
Jose Garcia Quinteros and Jose Pen a, and the sailors Pedro Cer- 
vantes, Miguel Escondell, Ygnacio Bastarrechea, Manuel Vasquez, 
Gregorio Perez, Diego Navarro, Manuel Soto, Bernardo Mauris, Jose - 
Dominguez, Andre's Otero, Felix Rodriguez, Domingo Arenos, Fran- 
cisco Pomares, Gaspar Mel gar, Lorenzo Toxer, Santiago Prega, and 
fireman Manuel Casal, all of whom went in the boats; and regarding 
the rest of the crew I can state that all did, to the best of their ability, 
whatever they could, not only in rendering assistance to the Maine, but 
in preventing this vessel from suffering the consequences of the explo- 
sion, helping in the manoeuvre that I deemed opportune, namely, to 
leave the buoy nearest the seat of the disaster. All the personnel that 
were on land returned to the vessel at the earliest moment. 

I must also state that very timely aid was rendered to this vessel by 
the gunboat Antonio Lopez, which towed us until we reached the chan- 
nel. 

God preserve your honor many years. 

On board, at Havana, February 18, 1898. 

Francisco F. Tiscal. [Rubric] 
Sefior Don Pedro del Peral, 
Captain of Frigate (Gapitan de Fragata), 

Judge of the Court of Inquiry (Juez Instructor). 

MINUTE. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 
Answer was received to the communication sent to the commandant 
of the Legazpu, of which reference was made in the preceding minute, 
and it is filed with the proceedings. 

ORDER. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 
The judge of the court decided to establish the position of the vessel 
in the chart of the port, and in order to facilitate this work and to 
gain time he requested the commandant of the cruiser Alfonso XII to 
have it done by the navigator of his ship. 

It was so ordered by his honor, and to this I, as secretary, certify. 

Javier de Sal as. [Rubric. 
Peral. [Rubric. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 585 

MINUTE. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 
A communication was delivered to the commandant of the Alfonso 
XII for the purpose indicated in the preceding decree. 
I certify to this. 

Javier de Salas. [Eubric] 
Peral. [Eubric] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 
The captain of the Spanish steamer Martin Saenz was summoned to 
appear and give a deposition in this affair. A communication to this 
effect was put in the hands of his consignees. 
I certify to this. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

HAVANA, February 19, 1898. 
Answer was received to the communication referred to in the pre- 
ceding minute, said consignee stating that the steamer Martin Saenz 
had left the port. In view of this a new communication was addressed, 
requesting that they inform this court of the itinerary of said vessel, 
in order to summon her captain. 
I certify to this. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

ORDER. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 
Having received a communication from the consignees of the steamer 
Martin Saenz, his honor ordered that it be filed with these proceedings, 
and that the naval aid of Matanzas be instructed to take the deposition 
of the captain of the said steamer; and, in order that it be done with- 
out delay, the judge ordered that a telegram be sent to the naval aid, 
informing him of this resolution. 
It was so ordered by his honor, and I, as secretary, certify to it. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 
Everything contained in the preceding order was carried out, and a 
communication was sent to the naval aid of Matanzas, inclosing a copy 
of the questions to be answered. 
I certify to this. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 



586 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

MINUTE. 

HAVANA, February 19, 1898. 
The coxswains of the boats of the Alfonso XZXand legazpu, who went 
to the rescue of the victims, were summoned to give their depositions 
in this matter. 
I certify to this. 

Javier de Salas. [Eubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

minute. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 
The captain-inspector of the house of M. Pinillos & Company ap- 
peared in person and verbally repeated all that he previously said in 
writing regarding the departure and itinerary of the steamer Martin 
Saenz, and that the boat which the captain took was that of the cox- 
swain, Andres Mugica, called Alfonsito. 
I certify to this. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 
The coxswain of the boat Alfonsito, Andres Mugica, was verbally 
summoned to appear and give his deposition. 
I certify to this. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

HAVANA, February 19, 1898. 

Several communications were filed with these proceedings, viz, four 
from his excellency the naval commander of the province; another 
approving the appointment of secretary; another from the commander 
of the cruiser Alfonso XII, giving an account of the accident, and 
referred to the court by the proper authorities, and another of this 
court, which was returned to be filed with these proceedings after 
having been passed upon by the proper authorities. The communi- 
cations of his excellency the naval commandant of the province are : 
First, inclosing another from the naval subdelegate of Casa Blanca, 
accompanied by a list of articles; second, accompanying a death cer- 
tificate of one of the crew of the Maine on board of the Colon, and 
giving account of same; third, transmitting an official communication 
accompanied by a report of the action of the captain of the said steamer, 
and, fourth, requesting, as a representative of the life-savers, a list of 
those distinguishing themselves. 

I certify thereto. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. | Rubric] 

Office of the Commandant-General of the Navy 

of the Station of Havana. Bureau of Justice. 
I approve your appointment of Lieutenant Don Francisco Javier de 
Salas y Gonzalez as secretary of the court having in hand the proceed- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 587 

ings brought about by the explosion on board the American war ship 
Maine, which I say to Y. H. that it may be recorded in the said pro- 
ceedings and in reply to your communication of the loth instant. 

God preserve Y. H. many years. 

Manterola. [Rubric] 

Havana, February 16, 1898. 

To the Judge Don Pedro del Peral, captain of frigate, commander 
of the cruiser Marques de la Ensenada. 

Court of Inquiry. 

I beg you will so provide that the captain of the Spanish steamer 
Martin Saenz consigned to you shall appear in this court at 2 p. m. 
to day, to depose in the proceedings I am conducting by reason of the 
catastrophe of the Maine. 

God preserve you many years. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral, Judge. [Eubric] 

Messrs. Saenz y Compaiiia. 

Communication nineteen. 

We can not grant the request of Y. H., as we would gladly do, because 
the steamer Martin Saenz left this port a moment ago for Matanzas. 

God preserve Y. H. many years. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. L. Saenz y Compania. [Rubric] 

To the judge. 

Court of Inquiry, Office of the 

Commandant-General of the Station. 

I beg you will furnish me with the itinerary to be followed by the 
steamer consigned to you, Martin Saenz, and the probable time of her 
arrival and departure at and from the ports where she will touch, so 
as to summon her captain. 

God preserve you many years. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral, Judge. [Rubric] 

Messrs. Saenz y Coinpania. 

Communication nineteen. 

She will reach Matanzas to-night; will leave there to-morrow, the 
twentieth, in the afternoon for Cienfuegos, where she will arrive on the 
twenty-third, remaining one day. From here she will go to New Orleans, 
whence we do not yet know with certainty whether she will go to 
Europe or return to this port. 

God preserve Y. H. many years. 

L. Saenz y Compania. 

To the judge. 

Office of the naval commandant and harbor master of the port of 
Havana transmits a communication from a naval subdelegate of Casa 
Blauca regarding the assistance rendered the crew of the battle ship 
Maine, accompanied some articles and a list of the saved. 

Most Excellent Sir: The naval subdelegate of Casa Blanca, in a 
communication dated on yesterday, writes me as follows: 

Most Excellent Sir : Last night, at about nine thirty five o'clock, there 
was heard a heavy detonation in the harbor, and supposing that some 
unfortunate accident had occurred, I immediately proceeded, accompa- 
nied by Doctor Don Baltazar Moas, of this ward, to the cruiser Alfonso 
XII, iu order to render such assistance as might be necessary, sending 
at the same time bandages from the fire department, as well as some 
stretchers, for any service that might be required. 



588 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

I returned a short time afterwards and invited Dr. Don Amado de 
los Cuetos to join me. He gracefully offered his services, and having 
noticed that, due to the prevailing wind, the whole shore was covered 
with objects belonging to the man-of-war Maine, where the catastrophe 
had occurred, I requested the authorities of this place to render 
whatever assistance they could to prevent abuses, and the military com- 
mander ordered that some of the volunteers of the marine corps belong- 
ing to this section should go on guard at different posts. The com- 
mander of public order also placed a half dozen policemen, with the 
same object in view. I afterwards joined the watchman of this ward 
and the commandant of the public order already mentioned, both of 
whom aided me the whole day and night, as they are thoroughly ac- 
quainted with this coast, until six o'clock in the morning, when I put 
six men, paid out of my own purse, in three small boats in order to save 
everything belonging to the vessel already referred to, and to pick up 
the bodies that might be floating. Five of these and a piece of the chest 
of another were picked up; all of which I sent to the Machina. I also 
sent in a launch that was lent to me by the heirs of P. Gamiz the arti- 
cles contained in the list, which I have the honor to send to your excel- 
lency. 

These articles were transferred in the afternoon to the lighter attached 
to the stern of the cruiser Alfonso XII. Besides these articles, there was 
a package of letters and documents in foreign language, a watch case, 
apparently of gold, and a piece of white kid. The captain of the cutter 
Olaya (folio 1019), Don Manuel Villegas, and his companion, D. Eosendo 
Martinez, delivered at this subdelegation an undershirt in bad condi- 
tion, inside of which there was a watch and chain, apparently of gold, 
bearing the number 331131 on both sides, and marked B. W. C. x 0. 
Warranted, 11 K, with the glass completely broken, and the works 
stopped. Also two caps, a leather case, with a wooden one inside, con- 
taining surgical instruments; this box bears the name of the makers, 
George Tiernaum & Company, 107 Park Bow, !New York. I send these 
articles to your excellency, with the exception of the two caps and 
the undershirt, which were delivered with the others mentioned in the 
list to the cruiser Alfonso XII. All of which I have the honor to bring 
to the knowledge of your excellency for such action as you may deem 
expedient. 

I have the honor to refer all this matter to your excellency, with the 
original list mentioned above; the last six articles named in said list I 
send you, the others having been taken yesterday to the Machina and 
transferred to the launch belonging to the stern of the Alfonso XII. 
And conceived it a duty, of which the fulfilment gives him much pleas- 
ure, to recommend to the superior authority of your excellency both 
the conduct observed by the subdelegate of marine of Casa Blanca, 
Don Emilio Labade, who has demonstrated once more in this occasion 
the interest and great zeal which distinguishes him in all the acts of 
the service, and in a manner very special the honorable conduct of 
Manuel Villegas and Bosendo Martinez, master and mate respectively 
of the guard-ship Olalla. 

God guard your excellency many years. 

Havana, the 16th of February, 1898. 

Luis Pastor t Landone. [Flourish.] 

His excellency the Sr. Commandante- General of the station, Provi- 
dencia. 

With the annexed report is forwarded to the Sr. Fiscal of the same 
Havana, the 18th of February, 1898. 

Manterola. [Flourish.] 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



589 



Eeport of the effects collected on the shore by the Casa Blanca 
and conveyed by the launch Salvador to the war ship Alfonso XII, 
belonging to the American cruiser Maine, destroyed by an explosion 
the night of February, 1898. 



A case conserves containing 12 boxes. 

A case conserves, with 10 boxes. 

48 boxes biscuit. 

12 biscuit boxes, empty. 

1 American flag. 

1 Italian flag. 

2 signal flags, with staff. 

1 signal flag, American, with staff. 

1 bucket twisted tobacco. 

2 empty barrels. 

2 cloths. 

1 square copper jug. 

1 cane chair in bad condition. 

10 mattresses. 

4 pillows. 

1 rudder. 

3 painted stuffs for awning. 

5 painted canvass for clothing. 

2 sailcloth awnings with masts. 
1 broom. 

1 sailcloth hammock. 

1 empty case containing a flowered jug. 
A roll of goods and several pieces of 

sail. 

2 whisks. 

8 brushes for bitumen. 
An empty valise. 
A pair of spatterdashes. 
15 black caps. 

6 pair socks. 
1 pair shoes. 
1 pair boots. 

Small empty box with broken hinges. 
1 sail-cloth pouch. 
1 sail-cloth bag. 
Sponge of cannon. 
6 blankets. 



18 white sail-cloth trousers. 

16 white sail-cloth shirts. 

17 blue-cloth shirts. 
16 jackets blue drill. 

14 pair blue woolen trousers. 

2 uniform jackets. 

2 cloth caps. 

Sundry pieces linen. 

4 pieces of regalia. 

6 fragments of hammock. 

An empty jar. 

A small cu artel. 

94 small bags with 24 salvidadas. 

A cloth (hayaja). 

A compound of metallic cloth. 

A piece of canister. 

A wooden stanchion. 

A piece stanchion. 

A plane. 

A scale. 

A piece of painted wood. 

A leather case enclosing one of wood 
containing surgical instruments, a metal 
plate in the upper part having the fol- 
lowing inscription: " Genito - Urinari. 
Case Medicinal, department U. S. N." 

A watch with chain, apparently gold, 
with tbe number on both lids 331134, 
mark B. W. C. X. C. Warranted, with 
crystal completely broken and works 
stopped. 

A memorandum book. 

Package papers and letters and sundry 
photographs. 

A watch case, apparently gold, with the 
number 603273. 

A piece white kid. 



Casa Blanca, 17th February, 1898. 
The Subdelegado Emilio Lavate : [Flourish.] 
A seal which says Subdelegation de Marine of Casa Blanca. Mili- 
tary Coinmandancy of Marine and Captaincy of the Port of Havana. 

NOTICE OF THE DEATH OF THE SAILOR OF THE AMERICAN WAR- 
SHIP MAINE, FRANK FISCHER. 



Your Excellency: I regret to have to inform your excellency of the 
death, at 12.30 this day, of heart failure, of the sailor of the American 
warship Maine, Frank Fischer, who was brought to this ship on the 
night of the blowing up of the said ship. Which I have the honor to 
communicate to Y. E. for your superior resolution, adding that as soon 
as the said information was communicated to this ship a special boat 
from this vessel received the corpse and brought it to the vessel for the 
disposition of the judge instructor in the matter of the catastrophe of 
the Maine. 

God guard your excellency many years. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 

Luis Pastos. [Flourish.] 



590 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

His Excellency Comandaiite-General of the Station Providence. 
The accompanying document addressed to the Sr. Fiscal, of Havana, 
February 18, 1898. 

Manterola. [Flourish.] 

Steamer Colon. 

The undersigned, physicians of this ship, declare that at 12.30 to-day 
there died in our hospital Franck Ficber, who was wounded in the acci- 
dent to the Maine, in consequence of heart failure, which, by sudden 
complications, caused his decease. He received the last spiritual min- 
istrations appropriate to his failing condition, to which witness is given 
with regret. 

God guard your excellency many years. 

Bay of Havana, February 18, 1898. 

Jose Maria Acuna. [Flourish. 
Amadeo Arias. [Flourish/ 

Sr. Captain of the Steamer Colon. 

Cruiser Alfonso XII Captaincy. Number 909: 

Your Excellency : I regret to inform your excellency that last night 
the American war ship Maine exploded and sank in the neighborhood 
of this vessel. Immediately seven vessels were sent to render the neces- 
sary assistance, together with the guard ship Alonsito, the property of 
Andres Mogica Chacharra, which, from the first moment, was placed 
under our orders. Twenty-nine persons were rescued from the water, 
most of them with severe wounds and bruises, who were relieved by the 
Martin Saez and the Casa Blanca, and others arriving afterwards, to 
offer assistance. 

The increasing heat made it impossible to board the American ves- 
sel or to rescue a great number in spite of the most desperate exertions, 
and the incessant explosions of war material endaugered their lives. 
As we were about quitting the scene of the catastrophe Y. E.'s order 
arrived to watch the ship, for which purpose Antonio Lopez was placed 
under my orders, who towed us and anchored us to ground ways No. 1. 
During all the night the fire continued on the Maine, watch being kept 
around her. In the morning more aids were sent. This is what I have 
the honor to communicate to your excellency in fulfillment of my duty. 

God guard your excellency many years. 

A bordo, 

Havana, 16th February, 1898. 

Manuel de Elisa. [Flourish.] 

His excellency commander-general of the station. 

Providence. Address to the Sr. Fiscal of the same. Havana, Feb- 
ruary 18, 1898. [Flourish.] Military command of marine and captaincy 
of the port of Havana. 

OFFICIAL report of the captain of the mail steamer colon 
OF effectual succors to the sailors of the cruiser 

MAINE. 

Your Excellency : The captain of the Government mail boat Colon 
under date of to-day writes to me as follows: 

Your Excellency : The undersigned, captain of the mail boat Colon, has 
the honor to inform Y. E.that at 10 o'clock last night, after the explosion 
on the American battle ship Maine, aids were dispatched from this boat 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 591 

and the 21ejico, and the latter brought three wounded sailors, John 
Oaf he, gunner, Washington Cook, who were brought to this hospital, 
and Frank Fischer, sailor, who remained on board because the surgeon 
of the vessel did not think him fit to be moved. According to the report 
made to me today that the gravest symptoms have disappeared he may 
be removed at the pleasure of Y. E. Annexed I have the honor to 
add the medical reports which I have the honor to communicate to Y. B. 
for what action he may deem proper in the matter of the unfortunate 
accident to the war ship Maine. 

It is my duty to add that the captain of the ship informed me ver- 
bally that the wounded man was in a very serious condition, for which 
reason he was not disposed to disembark him. 

God guard Y. E. many years. 

February 16, 1898. 

Luis Pastor. [Flourish.] 

His excellency Sr. commander-general of the station. 
Providence. With the annexed documents presented to the Sr. 
Fiscal. 

Havana, February 18, 189S. 

Monterola. [Flourish.] 

At 2 this morning the wounded man, Frank Fischer, showed a reac- 
tion, which, at this hour, 8 in the morning, still continues. Being 4 no 
longer in the immediate danger which caused his presence in our hos- 
pital it is deemed expedient to remove him to whatever place you may 
decree. Which is communicated for your information and other effects. 
God guard your excellency many years. 
Bay of Havana, February 16, 1898. 
The surgeons, 

Amadeo Arias. [Flourish.] 
Jose Maria Acuna. [Flourish.] 

In the hospital of this ship, and about 10 o'clock last night, we 
attended for the first time two white and one colored sailor of the North 
American battle ship Maine, whose cases present: The white, Frank 
Fischer, burns of first and second grade all over his face, anterior part 
of chest and abdomen, upper extremities, and both feet. There is 
observed also a great swelling of the right tarso-tibio joint, extending all 
over the foot which prevented us from localizing the seat of the malig- 
nant soft rattling which was perceptible on the movements communicated 
by the extension and flexion of the foot over the leg, and perceived 
more distinctly toward the heel. The second of the sailors, John Coffe, 
white, like the former, presented in the upper portion of the head and 
near the occiput and on the left side two contused wounds, one lineal, 
about four centimeters in length, extending over all the soft parts except 
the periostio. The other contiguous to the first and more to the left 
and lower down, was of irregular outline and bruised, anfractuous and 
extended to the bone including the periostio. 

No perceptible wound or symptom of cerebral disturbance. The same 
person had in the anterior part of the head a slight erosion of small 
importance and a fracture of the outer extremity of the left clavicula. 
There were also burns of the first grade on the arms and shoulders. 
The negro named Washington has wounds of first and second grade 
over his whole face, neck, and anterior region of chest and upper 
extremities. The general condition of the two last wounded men was 



592 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

sufficiently good for them to be removed to a convenient place. On the 
contrary, the condition of Frank Fischer is such that, considering the 
possible grave contingencies of a removal, we have ordered that he be 
placed in the hospital, which, with the natural regret that we feel, is 
communicated to you. 

God guard your excellency many years. 
Bay of Havana, February 13, 1898. 
The surgeons, 

Amades Arias. [Rubric] 
Jose Maria Acunia. [Rubric] 

Examining Court of the 
Commanding General of Dock-yards. 
Excellency: I have the honor to inform Y. E. that, in order to con- 
tinue the hearings in the matter of the lamentable accident to the North 
American battle ship Maine, it has been necessary to take the deposi- 
tions of the survivors of the said ship, and having received notice that 
among these were the commander of the vessel and various officers, it 
would be proper to take the declaration of the first and the declarations 
of two or three of the officers. For this purpose I address myself to 
Y. E., in order that you may be good enough to decide. 
God guard Y. E. many years. 
Havana, February 16, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubric] 

His Excellency the Commander-General of the Dockyard. 

orders. 

The presents shall be transmitted to H. E. the illustrious Governor- 
General of this island, requesting the appearance of all the parties in 
interest, and that the present document be returned to the examining 
judge in the case. 

Havana, February 16, 1898. 

Manterola. [Rubric] 

Office of the military commandant of marines and of the captain of 
the port of Havana. To duly comply with the wish of the Spanish 
society for saving the lives of sailors, which I represent in this island, 
and in order that the distinguished deeds may not remain unknown 
and unrewarded, performed by those who at the risk of their lives had 
been enabled to take part in the rescue of the survivors of the Maine, 
as the result of its explosion, I address myself to you in order that you 
might be good enough to inform me of their names and acts which were 
worthy of reward. 

God guard you, etc., 

Representative general, Luis Pastor, 
Examining judge, in the investigation concerning 

the explosion on the Maine. 
Havana, February 18, 1898. 

DECLARATION OF CABO DE MAR DE PRIMERA MIGUEL BARBAR. 

Havana, February 19, 1898, there appeared in this court the person 
named in the margin, who, having been advised concerning the inter- 
rogatories to be made, declared on oath that he would speak the 
truth, and having been further advised of the punishment incurred by 



AFFAIRS IX CUBA, 593 

one swearing falsely and having - bad the usual questions required by 
law put to him, declared as follows: That his name was Miguel Barbar 
y Soriano, Cabo de mar de primera, employed as one of the crew of the 
cruiser Alfonso XII ; that he was 31 years old, married, and declared 
that he had no interest direct or indirect in the investigation which 
was now being conducted. 

Being asked whether he proceeded in command of any boat from the 
vessel on which he was employed for the purpose of assisting the vic- 
tims of the Maine, aud that he should tell what he did for them, he 
replied that on hearing the explosion he sprang up aud, on learning 
what had occurred and hearing the order to man the boats, he went by 
the "tangon" to the first lifeboat of his vessel, of which he was the 
captain, in which six mariners and second gunner's mate Dominguez 
embarked. 

The declarant going in his drawers aud shirt, as no time was allowed 
for him to dress himself That he reached the American vessel with 
difficulty, since there was much timber and wreckage floating in the 
water, and that on reaching it they passed to the port side about mid- 
ships, passing for this purpose over the remains of the vessel, across 
the prow and between what remained of the vessel aud the foremast, 
which was now in the water; that he passed under the stern of the 
sixth lifeboat of the Alfonso XII, which was likewise there, and which 
delivered to him eight wounded men, all taken from on board the Maine 
by the sailors of the Alfonso XII; that he then proceeded with them 
to his vessel in order that they might receive attention, and going all 
the sooner because a sailor of the Maine, whom he could not see, but 
whom he thought was a machinist of the first class, told them that they 
should leave and get out of the way, because there was danger. On 
reaching his vessel, after placing the wounded on board, they undertook 
the task of unmooring their vessel in order that it might change its 
anchorage. 

Being asked whether he noticed any movement in the water, he 
answered that as they were going he did notice it, caused by the rain 
of articles which fell, still on fire, and by the commotion of the explo- 
sion. Thereupon this declaration was closed, and having read it he 
affirmed the same and swore to its contents, signing it with the judge 
and the secretary now present, who certified the same. 

Miguel Barbae. [Rubric] 

Pedeo del Peeal. [Rubric] 

Javiee de Salas. [Rubric] 

DECLAEATION OF EOGALIO UFOET Y ECHEVEEEIA. 

Havana, on February 19, 1898, appeared in this court the person 
named in the margin, who, having been advised of the interrogatories 
to be put to him, swore that he would speak the truth, and who, like- 
wise warned of the danger incurred by perjury aud being asked, the 
usual questions required by law, declared that his name was Rogalio 
Ufort y Echeverria, a native of Maninos, Ferrol Road, 20 years old, a 
bachelor, and brother of the owner of the boat Carmen, which was 
manned that same night, having declared that he had no interest in 
the examination now being conducted, he was asked whether on the 
night of the 15th he carried the captain of the steamer Martin Saenz to 
the Uustraro. He replied that on that day, at 1 in the evening, he pro- 
ceeded from the San Jose wharf, where the Martin Saenz was moored, 
to the Uustraro, which was moored at Friscornia, opposite to the Belot 
38 



594 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

sugar refinery, and that on his way there he passed round the Maine, 
without perceiviog anything. 

Being asked at what hour he returned from the Eustraro, and 
whether he knew anything of the Maine explosion, he replied that on 
that day about 9 o'clock he was carrying the captain of the Martin 
Saenz from the Eustraro to the San Jose wharf, when, being at a dis- 
tance of about 50 or 60 meters from the Maine, and in a line therewith 
on the port side, he felt the explosion, and some of the objects began to 
fall around the boat, but none therein; and that they splashed the 
captain and the declarant, but that they did not notice any more move- 
ment in the water than that, he and the captain sheltering themselves 
under the awning and proceeding slowly toward the San Jose wharf 
on seeing that nothing further occurred. He did not see whether the 
vessel sank or no, as they were only occupied in getting out of the way. 
Thereupon this declaration was closed, and he, having read the same, 
and affirmed and sworn to the truth of its contents, signed with the 
judge in the presence of the secretary who certifies. 

Kogkllio Usfort. [Sign manual.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Sign manual.] 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 

DEPOSITION OF THE BOATMAN AURELIANO MUGICA. 

At Havana, the nineteenth day of February, eighteen hundred and 
ninety eight, appeared the individual named in the margin, who, being 
informed as to what he was to be interrogated about, swore to tell the 
truth with a knowledge of the penalties imposed upon those who give 
false testimony, and the usual questions being put to him, he said that 
he is and calls himself Aureliano Mugica y Valencia, native of Bermeo, 
thirty-three years old, married, boatman, manning the boat called 
Alonsito, who declared that he had no interest whatever in the cause 
which is being investigated. 

Being asked to declare what he knew about the explosion occurring 
in the Maine, he said that shortly after half past six, with another com- 
panion, he went toward the Eustrara to see if the machinists, his coun- 
trymen, should want to come to land. They told him no, and that he 
eat and drank there a little, coming, shortly after a quarter past nine, 
towards land, hearing that from the Segaspo they gave him the boat 
ahoy, replying loud, perceiving at this moment a very vivid flash and 
a very great detonation, such as has never been greater, and when he 
recovered from the fright he heard cries and went towards the Alfonso 
XII, where he gave the alarm and where they called him to go in aid 
of the victims; that there embarked there an officer and a petty officer 
and they went towards the Maine, picking up at its larboard side two 
wounded who were swimming and supported on tables on the water, 
taking them to the Alfonso. And in this state this deposition was sus- 
pended, reading it, and signing it, and ratifying it in full, signing it 
with the judge and secretary present, which I certify. 

Aureliano Mug-aci. [Sealed.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Sealed.] 

Javier de Salas. [Sealed.] 

DEPOSITION OF THE OABO DE MAR, THE FIRST JOSE ENSENATA. * 

At Havana, the nineteenth February, eighteen hundred and eighty- 
eight, appeared in this court the individual mentioned above, who being 
informed of what he was to be interrogated, swore to tell the truth, and 



AFFAIKS IN CUBA. 595 

doing so with a knowledge of the penalties visited upon those who swear 
falsely. Being asked the general questions, he said he Avas and called 
himself Jose Ensenata Rubio, first Cabo de Mar, enlisted in the crew of 
the Alfonso XII, who declared that he had no interest, direct or indi- 
rect, in the cause under investigation. Being asked what he knew 
about the explosion occurring in the Blaine, he said that he was lying 
down, although awake, in the cockpit, and that upon hearing the detona- 
tion he went up on deck, embarking, by order of the officer of the guard, 
in the boat of which he is master, going immediately to the Maine. 

Being the first boat to arrive, coming alongside its starboard side, at 
the fashion pieces; that in the roundhouse of the American (vessel) 
there were some ten or twelve men that he saw who had been thrown 
into the water, grasped at the bosa of his boat; that he took them out 
of water and already in his boat he saw that they had been wounded; 
that at this moment arrived Alferez de Navio D. Guillermo Colmenares 
in a Quadraa and he jumped aboard remaining already at his orders; 
sheering oft in a little while because no one more was seen going 
aboard; and in this state this deposition was suspended, being read by 
himself, signing and ratifying it in full and signing it with the judge 
and secretary present ; which I certify. 

Jose Ensenata. [Sealed.] 
Pedro del Peral. [Sealed.] 
Javier de Salas. [Sealed.] 

DECREE. 

At Havana, nineteenth of February, eighteen hundred and ninety- 
eight, coming the judge, who from the depositions of the sailing masters 
could deduce nothing as to the cause of what happened, all of their 
depositions being to the same effect, he decided not to take the deposi- 
tions of the rest of the cabos de mar (petty officers) in charge of the 
boats of the cruiser Alfonso XII and Segaspi. He decided as well to 
take the deposition of the quartermaster of the steamship Colon and 
certain persons of the Alfonso XII, who were on the left-hand side, 
according to advices of the court. His lordship thus decreed before 
me, the secretary, which I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sealed.] 
Peral. [Sealed.] 

procedure. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 
There were cited, by official notification, the quartermaster of the 
Colon, through his consignees, and verbally, the persons on the cruiser 
Alfonso XII. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sealed.] 
Peral. [Sealed.] 

PROCEDURE. 

Havana, February 20, 1898. 
It appears judicially that the quartermaster of the steamship Colon 
did not appear at nine o'clock in the morning of to-day, February 
twentieth, according to the summons issued. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sealed. 
Peral. [Sealed.] 



596 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

DECREE. 

At Havana, February twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, 
the presiding judge resolved to send a private communication to the 
jurisdictional authority, giving it an account of the general aspect of 
the case and of the resume of impressions that can be deduced from the 
work in this case, in order, if it should be thought proper, to turn it 
over to the Government of His Majesty, and to annex to these proceed- 
ings a copy of this letter as proof. Thus his lordship declared before 
me, his secretary, which I certify.. 

Javier de Salas. [Sealed.] 
Peral. [Sealed.] 

COURT OF INSTRUCTION. 

Excellent Sir: Thinking it proper, in view of the importance of the 
unfortunate accident occurring to the North American ironclad Maine 
to anticipate, although in reserved character, something of that which 
in brief will form part of the opinion of the fiscal (attorney-general) 
upon that which I undersign, and in case your excellency should think 
it opportune and proper to inform the Government of Her Majesty 
thereof, I have the honor to express to your excellency that from the 
judicial proceedings up to to-day in the matter, with the investigation 
of which you charged me immediately after the occurrence of the catas- 
trophe, it is disclosed in conclusive manner that the explosion was not 
caused by any action exterior to the boat, and that the aid lent by our 
officers and marines was brought about with true interest by all and in 
a heroic manner by some. 

It alone remains to terminate this dispatch that when the court can 
hear the testimony of qrew of the Maine and make investigation of its 
interior some light may be attained to deduce, if it is possible, the true 
original cause of the event produced in the interior of the ship. God 
guard your excellency many years. 

Havana, April 20, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Sealed.] 
Escopia Javier de Salas. [Sealed.] 

Excellent sir, Commandant-general of the apostadero adjutancy of 
marine of the district and captaincy of the port of Matanzas : 
I return to Your Excellency the annexed extract finished in the cap- 
tain of the Spanish ship Martin Sainz, D. Jose Manuel Ozamiz. God 
guard your excellency many years. 
Matanzas, February 20, 1898. 

Juan Vignan. [Sealed.] 

Judge instructor, Captain of the Frigate Don Pedro Peral ; Don Pedro 
del Peral y Caballona, captain of the frigate of the Armada, judge 
instructor of the proceedings instituted with regard to the explosion 
which took place on board the North American ironclad Maine: 
To the military adjutant of marine of the district of Matanzas, I 
respectfully salute and make known that in the indicated proceedings 
it has been decided to receive the deposition of the captain of the steam- 
ship Martin Sainz, who has his residense therein, and to this end I 
address your excellency this letter in order to exhort and require you 
in the name of Her Majesty, and to ask and charge you in mine, that as 
soon as it is within your power you acknowledge receipt and devote 
yourself to carrying it out, taking the deposition in conformity to the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 597 

annexed interrogatory in accordance with the questions set forth in it, 
and others which may be derived therefrom and may be pertinent, and 
when sworn to return the same to me with its results; then having; 
done this you will administer justice which I giving obligation to 
another as well as to your excellency when it should be uecessary. 
Havana, February 19, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Sealed.] 

Questions to which the person interrogated, whose examination is 
solicited, must be subjected: First, the usual general legal questions. 
Second, if he went to visit in the night of the fifteenth of the present 
month the captain of the steamship Eusltaro, and at what hour. Third, 
at what distance did you pass from the North American ironclad Maine 
when you went toward the Eustaro, and if you observed anything on 
the Maine which attracted your attention? Fourth, in what boat did 
you go, and the name or names of its crew? Fifth, at what hour did 
you return to the Eustraro, if you did so in the same boat; at what 
distance did you pass from the Maine ; if you observed fire signals, 
how much time approximately did you see the fire before the explosion ; 
who talked with the member or members of the crew of the boat, and 
tell all the phenomena that were presented, with the largest number of 
details possible. The chief (jefe) having charge of the taking of these 
interrogatories will ask such questions as he may consider pertinent 
and which may be deduced from the declarations of the captain. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Seal.] 

Don Juan Vignan y Vigmor, Captain of Frigate of the Amada, adjutant 
of marine of the district, and captain of the port of Matanzas : 
Nomination of secretary having to undertake the annexed command 
in the carjtain of the steamer Martin Mainz, anchored to-day, day of the 
date in this port, I have nominated secretary of this cause M. Antonio 
Marzol y liosa, who is possessed of the necessary qualifications. 
Matanzas, February 20, 1898. 

Juan Vignan. [Seal.] 

ACCEPTATION AND OATH OF SECRETARY, AT MATANZAS, FEBRUARY 

20, 1898. 

Present, the secretary. 

He caused to be made known the nomination which resulted, and 
being informed thereof, as well as the duties of his office, he took oath 
to discharge them well and faithfully, subscribing with me these pre- 
sents for record. 

Antonio Monzel. [Sealed.] 
Juan Vignan. [Sealed.] 

ORDER. 

Matanzas, February 20, 1898. 
Annex the interrogatories to this record and summon the captain of 
the steamer Martin Saenz to appear to give evidence as is proper. 

Juan Vignan. [Eubric] 



600 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

witness, in the vicinity of the Maine, the work of the official diver who 
would go down on that day to begin the inspection of the bottom 
toward the bow, completely submerged. The court was transferred to 
the said vicinity in a boat from the Machina of San Fernando, and 
witnessed the descent of the diver at 11.15 o'clock, who reappeared at 
11.45. The second officer of the Maine, who arrived at this moment, 
stated, after speaking with the diver, that the latter had seen a good 
deal of mnd, adding that the work would be continued at 1 p. m. At 
the said hour the court again met at the same place, and at 1.50 the 
diver went down again, coming up at 3.15, bringing up with him a cop- 
per cylindrical tube of thin plates, some 40 cen. in length by 15 in diam- 
eter. The diver again went down, coming up in a short while, without 
making any statement whatever of importance. And in order that a 
record be made, a minute is entered, to which I, the secretary, certify. 

Javier de Sal as. [Rubric.] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

ORDER. 

In Havana, on the twenty-first day of February of 1898, his honor 
ordered that an attentive official communication be sent to the com- 
mandant-general of the station, requesting him to again authorize the 
inspection of the bottom of the Maine by the divers from the navy yard, 
and to annex a copy of that communication to these proceedings for 
record. His honor so ordered before me, the secretary, who certifies 
thereto. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, February 21, 1898. 
The foregoing order was complied with. I certify thereto. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

DEPOSITION OF THE CHIEF DIVER OF THE PORT, DON FRANCISCO 

ALDAO. 

In Havana, on the twenty -second day of February, 1898, there 
appeared in this court the party summoned on the margin, who, beiug 
advised of the matters upon which he was to be interrogated, made 
oath to tell the truth, he being also informed of the penalties incurred 
by him who declares falsely under oath. 

Being asked the usual preliminary questions, he said thftt he was 
named Francisco Aldao y Sixto, a native of Galicia, of lawful age, 
the chief pilot of the port, and that he had no interest whatever, 
direct or indirect, in the matter in hand. Being asked the draft of 
the battle ship Maine, the depth of water at the anchorage, the class 
of moorings, the nature of the bottom, the fluctuation of the tide, the 
state of the latter on the night and hour of the occurrence, and the 
prevailing wind at that moment, he answered that according to the 
statement of the commander to the pilot who brought him in, the vessel 
drew 23 feet; that at the anchorage, at the place of mooring, which was 
Government buoy No. 4, there were 28 feet at low tide, and in the neigh- 
borhood as much as 36 feet; that the bottom, where the forward part of 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 601 

the vessel now rests, is muddy, and that the fluctuation of the tide is, 
generally, a foot and a half; that he does not remember the state of the 
tide at the time of the occurrence, and that the prevailing wind then 
was very light from the fourth quadrant, the bay being absolutely calm. 

Being asked if after the occurrence he made any inspection in the 
vicinity of the Maine and in the west of the bay, and whether he has 
observed or has any information through his subordinates of any 
dead fish being found in the harbor, he said that at daybreak of the 
day following the occurrence he himself went, together with another 
numbered pilot of the port, to sound around the vessel and to see 
whether the vessel had lost her moorings when blown up; that he 
found them in the same place and did not notice, as a result of the 
soundings, any obstacle in the port other than the vessel itself; he did 
not find a single dead fish in his excursion, and having asked of all 
the pilots and many boatmen and people of the bay, no one saw them. 

Being asked whether fish was plentiful in the bay and if there was 
anyone engaged in this calling in the interior of the harbor, he said 
that small fish is very plentiful in the interior of the harbor and that 
there are several engaged in fishing there. 

Being asked whether he has heard or knows anything which may 
assist in the elucidation of the event which occurred on the Maine, he 
said that he neither knows nor has heard absolutely anything, and at 
this stage this deposition was suspended, the witness reading it, affirm- 
ing and ratifying the same and its contents, and signing it with the 
judge in the presence of the secretary, who certifies it. 

Francisco Aldao. [Sign manual. 
Javier de Salas. [Sign manual. 

MINUTES. 

Havana, February 22, 1898. 
The judge, accompanied by the secretary, repaired to the steamer 
Mangrove, where he conferred for a long while with the captain of the 
said steamer and the commander of the Maine, Mr. Sigsbee. On his 
return, he inspected the wreck of the American ship, where the divers 
were at work, and in order that it may be of record it is set forth by 
means of minutes which I, the secretary, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, February 23, 1898. 
The most excellent inspector of military health was officially written 
to and requested to submit an account of the assistance rendered by 
the military medical professors and the names of the same for the rec- 
ords of the proceedings. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

DEPOSITION OF THE " CABO DE MAR " OF THE SECOND CLASS 
ANTONIO VARELA LOPEZ. 

At Havana, on the twenty-third of February, one thousand eight 
hundred and ninety-eight, appeared before the court the person named 
in the margin, who being informed of that about which he was to be 



602 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

interrogated, swore to tell the truth, being- reminded of the penalties 
incurred by those who give false testimony; being asked the usual 
questions of the law declared himself in his name to be Antonio Varela 
Lopez, "Cabot de Mar" of the first class, on duty at the navy-yard, a 
bachelor twenty-six years old, and declared that he had no interests 
whatever in the case under investigation. 

Being asked to depose when and why he went to the Maine in the 
night of the loth instant, he said that by order of the adjutant major 
of the navy-yard shortly after the explosion he set out in a rowing 
boat with the adjutant major on board towards the Maine, but as they 
came near a certaiu number of shells exploded and by order of the 
officer whom he carried he then went to the Machina, he remaining there 
waiting for the adjutant major, who was in conference with the chief of 
staff; that at that time a civilian arrived who he thinks was an officer 
of the Maine, and that by order of the commander of the Machina he 
transported him to his ship; on coming near it he heard cries and then 
he came nearer, against the opinion of the American official who did 
not want to approach, and in the forward part, wholly under water 
and from which emerged several fragments of plating already blown 
up, he saw a man who was the one who was crying whom he picked up, 
carrying him to the Machina, for he was wounded, and he neither saw, 
heard, nor met in that neighborhood any other. 

On the way the wounded man, who was lying down, exchanged a few 
words with the Americau officer, and it seems told him that there were 
still wounded men thereabouts, for on our arrival, after landing the sea- 
man, he spoke to one of the aids of the admiral, then returned in his 
boat carrying again the same officer and two physicians, as he believes 
civilians; that they came alongside the Ma ine on the starboard side, 
jumping on board and seeing that the water had reached to the height 
of the deck on which they walked, but they run over it — the upper 
deck — as far as the very seat of the fire without seeing or hearing any- 
thing. They went up into the top without either finding anything; 
that they then withdrew, carrying the officer and physicians to the 
steamer City of Washington. The witness returned to the Machina, 
where he was ordered to go back to the navy-yard. And at this stage 
this deposition was suspended, the witness reading it, affirming and 
ratifying its contents, and subscribing it with the judge in the presence 
of the secretary, who certifies. 

Antonio Yarela. [Sign manual.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Sign manual.] 

Javier de Saas. [Sign manual.] 

Court of investigation. 

Most Excellent Sir: It being deemed necessary for the elucidation of 
the facts in the case which I am investigating in regard to the explo- 
sion which occurred on the war ship of the United States Maine to 
make an examination of its bottom, I request that your excellency take 
the proper measures to authorize me to that effect, as well as to pro- 
cure from the arsenal the assistance of divers and barges that may be 
requisite. 

God guard your excellency for many years. 

Havana, February 1G, 1898. 

Pedro del Paral. [Sign manual.] 

Most Excellent Commander General of the Station Providential: Let 
the most excellent and illustrious governor- general of this island be 
officially written to that he may be pleased to obtain from the most 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 603 

excellent consul of the United States of America the assent for the 
action referred to and to issue the necessary orders to the commander 
of the navy-yard, so that the assistance required be extended, and let 
the present letter be returned to the judge-advocate who signs it for 
the records in the case. 

Havana, February 16, 1898. 

Monterola. [Sign manual.] 

Court of hives tig at ion. 

Most Excellent Sir: It being certain in the opinion of this court that 
there remains in the part under water that was not burned of the iron- 
clad Maine all the magazines appertaining to the afterpart in which 
there had been stored not only the ammunition belonging to a part of 
its ordnance, but also that for the torpedoes and other explosives that 
they might carry, I request your excellency to inquire of the com- 
mander of the Maine, whether directly or through the medium of his 
consulate, what he carried on board and what in his judgment remains 
that is liable to explode, in order that we may in case of necessity 
proceed to take out of the ship, through the divers, those substances 
and empty the magazines in order to avoid subsequent catastrophe 
similar to those which, in the case of the blowing up of the steamer 
Cabo Machichaco, occurred even after the boat had been under water 
for some time. 

I ask your excellency that in order to save my responsibility you 
demand of the consul answer to this report of great interest in the 
present investigation. Clod save your excellency's life many years. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubric] 
The judge of the court of inquiry (El Juez Instructor). 

To his excellency the Commander-General of the Providencta 

Station (Apostadero). 

Let the attorney be informed that as agreed with the consul of the 
United States and the commander of the cruiser Maine the work for 
which a permit has been solicited shall be conducted as soon as said 
gentlemen receive the supplies of material and divers they have asked 
from their Government, and let this communication be filed. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 

Manterola. [Rubric] 

Court of inquiry (Juzgado de instruccion). 

Most Excellent Sir: Having been previously called by the com- 
mander of the Maine, I personally went to-day on board of the Ameri- 
can steamer Mangrove, at ten thirty o'clock, and had a conference with 
the above-mentioned gentleman, who informed me of his desire that I 
should be present in the neighborhood of the Maine to witness the 
work of the official divers who would, during the day, go down to 
begin the work of surveying the bottom of the part of the prow totally 
submerged. To comply with the gentleman's wishes, as well as to see 
if I could gain any light from him as to the result of said work, I went 
to the neighborhood of the Maine around its prow, and I witnessed the 
descent of the diver, at eleven fifteen o'clock. He came up again at 
eleven forty-five. The second commander of the Maine, who arrived at 
this last moment, told me, after having spoken to the diver, that he had 
seen much mud, and he informed me that he would descend again at 
one o'clock. I then withdrew. At the aforesaid hour I was again in 



604 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

the same place, the diver descending at one fifty o'clock and coming - up 
again at three fifteen o'clock. 

These operations were not witnessed by any officer, class, or person 
of any significance, but only by sailors who worked on the air pump 
and another who took care of the pipe of the helmet and the move- 
ments of the diver. Nothing was told to me, but I could notice that 
the diver brought up with him something in the shape of a cylindrical, 
thin plate copper pipe about forty centimeters in length by fifteen 
diameter. Shortly after this the diver descended again, and upon his 
ascending I was told by one of the mentioned sailors that there were 
six or seven corpses among the submerged debris, but that their 
removal was difficult as, on account of their state of decomposition, 
they had become soft. At four o'clock, the work for the day being fin- 
ished, as I was informed, I left the place, and being convinced that if 
1 do not make an investigation in the very near future of the bottom of 
the American ship, the proceedings I am to institute shall be incom- 
plete and will not be closed for a very long time, I ask from your excel- 
lency to obtain from the proper authorities a permit to commence 
immediately said investigation with the divers of the arsenal, in order 
to proceed to work at once, and submit to your excellency the complete 
report of the proceedings in my charge, the prompt termination of 
which interests not only the credit of the navy, but of the whole nation 
as well. 

God save your excellency many years. 

Havana, February twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight. 

The judge of the court of inquiry (El Juez de Instrucion). Pedro 
del Peral. [Rubric] 

This is a copy. Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 

To His Excellency the Commander-General of the Station, office of the 

commander-general of the navy at the station of Havana, secretary 

of justice : 

In reply to the courteous communication of your excellency, dated 
yesterday, relative to the expediency of extracting, by means of divers, 
the explosive substances in the armored ship Maine, emptying the coal 
bins, in order to prevent further disaster, I beg to inform you that in 
accordance with the consul of the United States and the commander 
of the above mentioned ship this operation will take place as soon as 
the supply of divers and materials said gentlemen have solicited from 
their Government arrive. 

God save your excellency many years. 

Havana, February nineteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight. 

Manterola. [Rubric] 

To the captain of frigate (Ccqntan de Fragata) Don Pedro del Peral y 
Caballero. Auditor for a Process (Fiscal de una causa). Cruiser 
Magallanes, office of the commander. 

In reply to the courteous dispatch of your lordship of this date, I 
must state that from the first moments of the Maine's disaster, the 
persons expressed in inclosed report went to the Machina, under com- 
mand of the chief of staff, and that they rendered all the service that 
was requested from them until three o'clock in the morning, when they 
returned on board. I must commend, in the first place, the work of 
Don Agustin Machorra Amenabar, physician of this ship; the third 
practitioner (practicante), D. Jose Rodriguez Valencia, and the nurse, 
Juan Ramirez Pedrote, who were the first to arrive at the spot, and 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 605 

after having done their professional duties at the Machina, the cruiser 
Alfonso XII and the steamer Washington, remained at the Machina 
on watch until the next day to attend the wounded and burnt that 
were coming. 

God save your lordship many years. 

On board. Havana, February twenty-first, eighteen hundred and 
ninety- eight. 

Vicente Perez, [Rubric] 

To the judge of the court of inquiry on the process on account of the 
disaster of the Maine, cruiser Magallanes : 

LIST OF THE OFFICERS, CLASSES, AND PERSONS IN THIS SHIP WHO 
LENT THEIR AID IN THE DISASTER OF THE MAINE. 

Head physician, Don Agustin Machorra y Amenabar. Third boat- 
swain, Manuel Muifias. Third practitioner, D. Jose Rodriguez Valencia. 
Coxswain of the second class (cabo de mar de segunda), Antonio Mar- 
tinez Lopez. First-class seamen, Manuel Guardado Fandinu. Ditto, 
Manuel Abad y Abad. Ditto, Antonio Fernandez Costas. Ditto, 
Maximo Per in Rodriguez. Second class seamen, Juan Ramirez Ped- 
rote, Jose Fernandez Rodal, Jose Sucira Rivademar, Enrique Lozano 
Huertas, Juan Planell Torres, Jose Orquin Galiana, Antonio Nunez 
Varela, Manuel Lamela Gonzalez, Jose Pequeno Lolla, Antonio 
Iturbe Agoitu, Jose Subia Egana. First-class firemen, Manuel Fer- 
reira Sucira. Ditto second class, Manuel Pantin Dopico, Juan Perez 
Pico, Manuel Dapina Martinez, Jose Montero y Diaz, Tomas Boa 
Seguin, Jose Sucira Sardiua. 

All of whom distinguished themselves. 

On board, Havana, February twenty- first, eighteen hundred and 
ninety eight. 

Vincente Perez. [Rubric] 

Cruiser Alfonso XII, Office of the Commander, No. nine hundred and 
fourteen : 

In order to reply in due form to the communication of your lordship 
requesting a list of the persons of this crew (dotacionj who distin- 
guished themselves in the rescue of the crew of the armored Maine, 
which took fire in this port on the evening of the fifteenth instant, I 
have caused a verbal investigation to be made on board relative to the 
movements of this ship during the first moments of the disaster. The 
result is that the first boats to arrive to the Maine were all belonging 
to this ship; first, those which were floating, then those which were 
hanging, which were immediatdly lowered; all of this is easy to un- 
derstand, if it is remembered that this ship was distant only 150 meters 
from the burning one, and consequently the one nearest. Said boats 
went alongside the Maine, their crew boarded the ship, saving from a 
probable death many of the unhappy men who were some wounded, 
some stunned, and all exposed on account of the large increase of the 
fire and the rapid foundering of the armored vessel. 

I have beeu acquainted with many noble deeds done by the hands 
and seamen of this crew; some of them had to jump into the water to 
save the wounded, and others remaining on board of the Maine when 
she was foundering and had to hail their boat. As it is not possible to 
make the description inside the limits of this already lengthy communi- 
cation of the noble interest displayed by all, I inclose herewith, as 



606 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

requested by your excellency, a list of the uauies of those whom I 
believe more worthy of mention, stating at the margin their deeds. In 
regard to the officers, on the first moments the ensigns Don Guillermo 
Colmenares y Ortiz, Bon Luis Ponce de Leon, and Don Juan Rapallo 
y Orts went on board. The first mentioned arrived in a private boat 
which was on board, compelling to be taken there, he being perhaps 
the first person to arrive. All the others helped on board as much as 
circumstances required, many wounded having been picked up and 
cured, and the anchorage of the ship being changed with great exact- 
ness under the effective danger of incessant small explosions from the 
Maine. Happily, no misfortune took place on board this ship. 

God save your excellency many years. 

On board, Havana, February nineteenth, eighteen hundred and 
ninety-eight. 

Manuel de Elisa. [Rubric] 

To the captain of frigate (Gapitdn de Fragata), Don Pedro Peral, judge r 

At folio ninety-seven of this report is to be found a statement of the 
personnel of the cruiser Alfonso XII who distinguished themselves 
most in saving the victims of the ironclad Maine in the night of the 
15th of February, 1898. 

MINUTES. 

Havana, twenty^third of February, one thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-eight, an official letter of this court, ordered by his excellency, 
in regard to the permission solicited for the examination of the bottom 
of the Maine, is made part of these records. 

An official letter of this court, ordered by the superior authorities in 
answer to the request for the removal of the explosives and ammunition 
which are still in the afterpart of the Maine; a copy of the official letter 
addressed to the superior authority reporting that the works of the offi- 
cial American diver have been witnessed, and on the subject of the 
necessity for examining without delay by means of divers designated by 
this court the bottom of the Maine ; an official letter from the superior 
authority in reply to one of the foregoing, and two official letters of the 
commanders of the Alfonso XII and of the Magallanes on the subject 
of the assistance and service rendered by the personnel of their ships to 
the victims of the Maine are also made part of the record, and that it 
may be of record it is entered by means of minutes. 

I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

DEPOSITION OF THE "CABOT DE MAR " OF THE FIRST CLASS, 
MANUAL ANDUJAR GUERRERO. 

At Havana on the twenty-fifth of February, one thousand eight 
hundred and ninety-eight, appeared before this court the person named 
in the margin, whose deposition his honor thought fit to take, cau- 
tioning him as to the obligation under which he is to be truthful, and 
the penalties incurred by those who give false testimony; he swore 
to tell the truth, and being asked the usual questions of the law, 
declared himself and his name to be Manuel Rodriguez Guerrero, native 
of Ferrol, twenty-three years old, a bachelor, and Cabot de Mar of the 
first class, doing duty on the torpedo brigade; declared that he had no 
interest whatever in the case under investigation; being asked to 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 607 

depose how, when, and on what ground he went to the Maine in the 
night of the disaster, he said : 

That a short while after the explosion, a little before ten iu the night, 
he was by superior order sent out in a boat of the brigade, carrying the 
foreman major of the arsenal in the direction of the Maine, turning 
around it several times looking for floating objects that they met for 
the event of their finding some wounded men, and seeing nor hearing 
nothing unusual, they went to the Machina; there tbe foreman jumped 
out and they took on board the commander of the Caridad iu civilian 
clothes, a physician from the relief house, another civilian, a captain of 
firemen, and two firemen, again returning with all to the Maine, which 
was burning, jumping on board on the starboard side; that the water 
was not yet on the deck, but it came very near it; and that the ship 
was flooded in the inside; that they carried their examination as far as 
possible, climbing on thereto, and seeing nor hearing anything, they 
returned to the Machina with all these same gentlemen whom he had 
carried and thence conducted to the City of Washington, some of them. 
Here the declaration was ended, and after having been read was 
sworn to and ratified, and signed, with the judge and the secretary, 
who certifies to the same. 

Manuel Rodriguez. [Rubric] 
Pedro del Peral. [Rubric] 
Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 

DECLARATION OF THE GUNNER'S MATE, MANUEL DOMINGUEZ. 

In Havana, the twenty-fourth of February, 1898, appeared on being 
cited the below named, and after being warned of the duty of speaking 
the truth and the punishment incurred by those giving false testimony, 
he swore to tell the truth ; and being questioned as to his qualifications, 
said that he was named Manuel Rodriguez Diaz, born in the province 
of Huelva, having attained his majority, gunner's mate of the fleet, in 
the service of the cruiser Alfonso XII, and declared that he had no 
direct or indirect interest in the case in question. 

Being asked to declare all that he knew in regard to the aid rendered 
by his vessel to the Maine, he said that immediately after the explo- 
sion he went as he was into the boat that was in the water, to go in aid 
of the victims; arriving, with other boats from his vessel, first at the 
side of the Maine, and finding themselves at the larboard side almost 
under the prow; that from the center came cries of the crew, and hence 
that they went there; that they mounted to the deck near the large iron 
davit, picked up seven wounded men, who were transferred to the 
Alfonso XII, leaving the coxswain, Garruche, on the Maine, who had 
lost his way while engaged in picking up the wounded. 

That they saw as they reached the American ship, the captain's gig 
of the Maine with men in the poop, one of whom called, as well as he 
could make out, since he spoke in pigeon Spanish, that he was a doctor. 
That when they reached the Alfonso XII, his boat remained in the 
task of unmooring the ship, so as to change its position and remove it 
further from the scene of the catastrophe, where grenades were con- 
tinually exploding. 

Here the statement stopped, which he read, sworn to and ratified the 
contents, subscribing the same with the judge and the secretary, who 
certifies to the same. 

Antonio Dominguez. [Seal.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubric] 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 



608 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Cruiser Alfonso XII, Command Xo. 916. 
On the annexed plan is found the present position of the American 
battle ship Maine, as Y. H. state in your communication of yesterday, 
and I have the honor of placing it in your hands. 
God guard your excellency. 

Manuel de Elisa. [Seal.] 
Havana, February 19, 1898. 

Senor D. Pedro del Peral, captain of the frigate, judge of instruction. 

On page 101 of this statement will be found a map of the port of 
Havana, in which the position of the Maine is plainly shown. 

General Government of the Island of Cuba. 

His excellency the consul-general of the United States officially said 
to me on this date: In reply to the courteous communication of your 
excellency, dated the 16th instant, transmitting another from his excel- 
lency, the general-commander of the navy, asking the acquiescence of 
this consulate in the request of Senor Inez, instructor, to have an 
inquiry made into the causes of the accident to the Maine, I have the 
honor to say that, having consulted the commander of the same, the 
latter informs me that he hopes to exercise all action necessary for 
the inquiry regarding the ship under his own direction, according to 
orders from the United States Xavy Department. 

I have the honor to transmit to your excellency for your information 
and subsequent action. 

God guard your excellency. 

Eamon Blanco. [Seal.] 

Havana, February 17, 1898. 

His excellency the general-commander of the navy of the station. 

order. 

Eefer to the fiscal of the case for incorporation in the same. 

Manterola. [Eubric] 
Havana, February 22, 1898. 

Court of Inquiry. 

Esteemed Sir: This court not having received an answer to the com- 
munication in which it requested permission to inquire into the 
causes of the accident to the Maine, and it being of the highest 
importance that while this investigation is taking place, the approach 
of boats of any class, even those under the American nag (except 
war ships and those which have special authorization from this court) 
to the spot in question should be prohibited, begs your excellency 
to have the goodness to order that a patrol of vessels shall prevent 
the approach of the said boats that have not been authorized within 
a distance of 100 meters from the wreck. In order to avoid fric- 
tion, and in case you deem it advisable, it asks at the same time 
that the United States consul and the commanders of the American 
men-of-war in port should be made acquainted with this determination 
of the court, which has been adopted with the object of avoiding future 
confusion. 

God guard your excellency. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Seal.] 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 609 

His excellency the commander general of the station. 

Kefer to the chief of the general staff, that he may order what he may 
deem advisable in the premises in furtherance of the matter in interest 
and return the same. . 

Havana, February 18, 1898. Manterola. [Rubric] 

Esteemed Sir: Having ordered what is advisable, I have the honor 
to return to Y. E. this record, as you have been pleased to order. 
Havana, February IS, 1898. 

By order. Gabriel Roderiguez. [Rubric] 

Order: With the previous report refer to the fiscal for incorporation. 
Havana, February 22, 1898. Manterola. [Seal.] 

Court of instruction. Private. 

Esteemed Sir: In order that the patrol vessels may keep a suitable 
watch in the vicinity of the Maine, I have the honor to ask your excel- 
lency to appoint one or more officials, to exercise iu turn the same duty, 
keeping guard from sunset to dawn over the movements of the vessels 
that may approach the wreck, watching closely those that they may 
consider worthy of suspicion. 

God guard your excellency. 

Havana, February 18, 1898. Pedro del Peral. [Seal.] 

His Excellency the general, commander of the station. 
Order: Refer to the chief of the staff, in order that he may take the 
action necessary in the premises, and return. 
Havana, February 18, 1898. 

Manterola. [Rubric] 

Esteemed Sir: The proper action having been taken, I have the honor 
to return to your excellency the dispatch as you have ordered. 
Havana, February 18, 1898. 

By order. Gabriel Rodriguez. [Rubric] 

Order : Refer to the Fiscal to be incorporated. 

Manterola. [Rubric] 

declaration of the inspector of police of the inspection 

of vessels. 

In Havana, February 24, 1898, appeared in court the inspector, having 
been cited, who having been warned of the duty of speaking the truth 
and of the penalty for telling falsehoods, swears that he will speak 
truth, and being questioned as to his qualifications, says that he is 
and is called D. Antonio Perez Lopez, born in Zaragoza, being of age, 
married and residing at Industria, 62. at present inspector of police of 
the examinalion of boats of the port of Havana and annexes thereof. 

Being asked to state what he knows in regard to the explosion that 
occurred on the Maine and the causes thereof, he said that at the 
time he was standing on the balcony of his fiagstand on the Machina 
looking at the place where the Washington was anchored, the latter 
having just made entrance, and witnessed a tremendous explosion 
within the Maine, rising to a great height and then disappearing, caus- 
ing the subsequent conflagration of the vessel; that followed by the 
chief of police he went in a boat to the scene of the catastrophe, and 
that small explosions continued until half past twelve or one o'clock. 
That he was ignorant of the causes of the disaster, but that partly 
through information he had received, partly through that of his subor 
39 



610 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

dinates and other agents of police, boatmen, and many people with 
whom he was thrown in daily contact in his office he could not in any 
way believe that it occurred intentionally. 

Here the declaration ceases; which, after he has read, sworn to, and 
ratified, he signs before the judge and secretary, who certifies to the 
same. 

Antonio Perez. [Rubric] 

Pedro del Pekal. [Rubric. I 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 

minute. 

In Havana, the twenty- fourth of -February, 1898, there is attached to 
these proceedings a map of the port of Havana with the actual position 
of the Maine, accompanied by the official communication of the com- 
mander of the Alfonso XII. Communication transmitted from the 
general government of tbe island, showing I he answer of the consul of 
the United States, together with that of the commander of the Maine, 
in regard to the inquiry into the cause of the sinking of the boat. Two 
communications of this court, decreed by authority in regard to keep- 
ing watch in the vicinity of the wreck of the Maine. 

1 certify to the same. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

DEPOSITION OF THE PILOT, JULIAN GARCIA LOPEZ. 

In Havana, February 24, 1898, appeared, after being cited, the above- 
named individual; being instructed as to the duty of telling the truth 
and the penalties incurred in giving false testimony, declared that he 
would speak truth, and, being questioned as to qualifications, said that 
he was and was called Julian Garcia Lopez, native of the province of 
Oviedo, of age, pilot of the port of Havana, and that he had no interest, 
direct or indirect, in the case in question. 

Being asked if he had entered the battle ship Maine in the port, and 
if he had, to tell what he knew in regard to the matter, he said that on 
the 20th of last January he was on duty and it fell to him to receive an 
American man-of-war; but that, as it was not expected, he did not 
know what vessel it was; that it passed into port, and, according to the 
general instructions for all ships of war, after showing on the map to 
the Maine's captain the buoy of section No. 4, which was vacant, and 
receiving his approval, the pilot fastened the vessel there between the 
German man-of-war which was in port and the Alfonso XII, in 36 feet 
of water, the ship drawing 22, as he was informed. Being asked if 
he had anything more to add or declare, he said no, since he considered 
of no importance the inquiries made by the commander as to whether 
the boat was expected, to which he answered no; whether he consid- 
ered himself capable of bringing the vessel in, to which he answered 
yes; and whether they would be well received, to which he answered yes, 
since Havana was a cultured town, and they need not fear anything if 
they behaved themselves. 

This examination was then suspended; he read the same, affirming 
and ratifying it, and signing it with the judge and the secretary, who 
hereby certifies. 

Julian Garcia Lopez. [Rubric] 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubric] 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 



affairs in cuba. 611 

Naval Headquarters of the Station of Havana 

and the Squadron of the Antilles. 
General Staff. Section Second. Bureau of Equipment. 
I transmit to Y. H. the annexed invoice furnished by "La Balear," of 
the medicines furnished by it for the use of the wounded of the Amer- 
ican battle ship Maine on the night that the explosion of said vessel 
occurred, in order that you may provide that the amount thereof, which 
reaches one hundred and seven pesos and sixty-five cents, be charged 
to the expenses incurred in this matter, as you have been pleased to 
order heretofore. 

God preserve your honor. 
Havana, February 28, 1898. 

Jose Marenca, [Bubric.] 
Captain of frigate Bon Pedro del Par el, 

judge of the Maine Court of Inquiry. 

At folio 112 of these proceedings appears an invoice of medicines 
furnished by " La Balear," pharmacy, for the use of the wounded of the 
Maine, amounting to 117 pesos and 75 centimes gold. 

OFFICE OF THE NAVAL COMMANDANT AND HARBOR MASTER OF 
HAVANA, EEPORTING ARTICLES FOUND BELONGING TO THE BATTLE 
SHIP MAINE. 

Most Excellent Sir: The naval subdelegate of Casa Blanca, in an 
official communication dated yesterday, writes me as follows: 

Most Excellent Sir: I have the honor to transmit to Y. E., having 
found the same floating on the shores near the Friscornia Beach, a 
canvas ventilator, eleven meters sixty centimeters long by sixty-five 
centimeters wide, with four wooden rings, which was found enclosed in 
a canvas cover. At the Gandon wharf there was found a wooden box 
without a cover, with two cans, apparently of copper, which were empty 
and appeared to have contained varnish or oil, with their screw tops, 
measuring 35 centimeters in length by 45 in width, and as they may 
belong to the battle ship Maine I inform you thereof, that you may 
order what you may deem expedient in the premises. Which I have the 
honor to transmit to Y. E. for your superior information, adding that 
besides the articles mentioned the employees of this office recovered a 
torpedo skid and a compass, which, together with the articles already enu- 
merated for your excellency to order their disposition, considering that 
they all belong to the battle ship Maine. God preserve Y. E. many 
years. 

Havana, February 21, 1898. Luis Pastor. [Bubric] 

Most excellent Commandant-General of the Station. 

Order: Befer to the fiscal that it maybe incorporated in the record 
herein. 

Havana, February 24, 1898. Manterola. [Bubric] 

Office of the naval commandant and harbor master of the port of 
Havana reports bodies found on the Casa Blanca Beach belonging to 
the battle ship Maine. 

Most Excellent Sir: The naval subdelegate of Casa Blanca, in an 
official communication of yesterday, informs me as follows: 

Most Excellent Sir : I have the honor to make known to your excei- 



612 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

lency that from six until ten thirty a. m. to-day there have been found 
floating on these shores 1G bodies, apparently of the white race ; one leg, 
a portion of another, and other parts of an arm which may belong to 
the victims of the American battle ship Maine, which have been sent — 
nine, the portion of the leg, and other parts of an arm, by men from 
the Spanish cruiser Alfonso XII, and the other seven, and a leg, by the 
boat belonging to me (folio 854) to the Machina. Which I have the 
honor to transmit to Y. E. for your superior information. God preserve 
Y. E. many years. 
Havana, February 19, 1898. - Luis Pastor. [Eubric.J 

Most excellent Commandant-General of 'j he Station. 

Order: Refer to the fiscal that he may incorporate it in the records 
herein. 

Havana, February 24, 1898. Manterola. [Rubric] 

Office of the Sublnspector of the Military 

Board of Health of the Island of Cuba. 

Section 4. No. 1252. 
In reply to your communication of the 23rd instant, I transmit you 
the reports of the parties who, as a result of the unfortunate accident 
to the battle ship Maine, were cared for in the military hospitals of this 
station where they were taken, stating at the same time that from the 
very moment the accident occurred orders were issued that the entire 
medical corps not in service should repair to the wharf or the cruiser 
Alfonso XII, to offer their services should they be necessary, as also 
the ambulances on hand, and which were utilized in the premises. God 
preserve you many years. 

Havana, February 24, 1898. Mas. [Rubric] 

To the fiscal of the harbor master's office, Don Pedro del Peral. 

At folio 118 of this record appears a statement showing that there 
were entered in the military hospital of Alfonso XIII 5 individuals from 
the Maine, wounded and burnt. 

At folio 119 of the same appears another statement, showing that 
there entered the hospital of San Ambrosio twenty-eight individuals 
from the same vessel in a serious condition. 

Office of the Commandant of 

the Navy- Yard of Havana. 

No. 660. 

The chief adjutant of this garrison, to whom I sent the communica- 
tion of Y. H. of the 21st instant, relating to the assistance given the 
victims of the Maine, day before yesterday informed me as follows: 

In compliance with what your honor has been pleased to order, I 
have the honor to state that the .assistance given by the men of this 
navy-yard to the battle ship Maine on the night of the 15th was: The 
first boat of this yard, carrying the undersigned, the Coxswain Antonio 
Narela Lopez and a crew of ten; a boat of the torpedo squadron with 
the Quartermaster Antonio Manjibar Rafart, Coxswain Manuelo Rod- 
riguez Guerrero, and six in the crew ; the auxiliary launch, with the 
Second Quartermaster Jose Prache Otera, Coxswain Mattias Bestand, 
and a crew of ten. 

These boats being prepared with the alacrity which the case demanded, 
they proceeded to the place of the disaster, remaining there a long- 
while ; and the undersigned observing that the watchfulness of the 
three boats was unnecessary, ordered the launch to go to the Machina 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 613 

to receive further orders, aud engaging it in carrying the wounded from 
the cruiser Alfonso XII to the barracks of the Machina. The under- 
signed, with the first boat, went to the Machina to receive orders from 
the commanding officer, the torpedo-squadron boat remaining under the 
quartermaster, Mangibar, on the lookout at the place of the disaster 
until further orders. On the second trip of the first boat from the navy- 
yard to the Maine it carried an officer from said vessel and succeeded 
in saving the last wounded man on board, to do which this boat had to 
moor alongside a dangerous place of the burning wreck, and in so doing 
lost its rudder. 

The long time that the boat from the torpedo squadron remained 
rowing around the burning wreck at a short distance, constitutes, in 
the judgment of the subscriber, a distinguished action on the part of the 
quartermaster Mengibar and the crew of the said boat; distinguished 
also is the action of the chief of the first boat, Varela, and the crew, 
who, fighting the flames of the burning wreck, made fast to the bow of 
the Maine in order to save from certain death the last wounded man of 
the American crew. This is all I have the honor to impart to Y". H., 
and under separate cover I transmit a list of the names of the three 
crews who rivaled each other in the most humane of services. And 
with a copy of the statement mentioned, I transmit this to Y. EL, hav- 
ing to add that, for my own part, I can not make individual mention of 
actions that may be considered distinguished, since from the very 
moment of the catastrophe the entire personnel of officers of this navy- 
yard went to the site of the danger, the only one remaining here being 
the chief of the torpedo squadron, in compliance with my orders. 

The health officers voluntarily left to offer their services, as did the 
chief medical officer of the yard, who took the ambulances and surgical 
appliances on hand. God preserve Y. H. many years. 

Navy- Yard, February 24, 1898. 

Esteban Almeda. [Rubric] 

To the Judge Don Pedro del Peral. 

At folio 124 of this record appears a list of the men from the navy- 
yard who, manning three boats, rendered assistance on the night of the 
catastrophe to the battle ship Maine. 

At folios 125, 120, 127, 128, and 129 of the said record appear five 
photographs. 

Office of the Subinspector of the Military 

Board of Health of the Island of Cuba. 

In addition to the communication of this office, No. 1252, which I had 
the honor to address Y. H. under date of the 24th instant, referring to 
the assistance rendered by the military medical corps to the wounded in 
the catastrophe to the battle ship Maine, I have to inform Y. EI. that 
the following distinguished themselves by reason of their energy, zeal, 
and their spontaneous presence at the necessary points, offering their 
professional and personal services, as well on the wharf, asylums, inns, 
and hospitals : 

The medical subinspector, second class, Don Agustin Muniozguren, 
Dr. Olemente Senar y Vicente, Dr. Don Jose Locute y Gallego, and Dr. 
Don Enrique Solana y Alemany. Which I have the satisfaction of 
communication to Y. H. for the purposes you may deem expedient. 

God preserve Y. H. many years. 

Havana, Feb. 28, 1898. 

Cristobal Mas, Inspector. [Rubric] 

To the fiscal of the office of the harbor master. 



614 affairs in cuba. 

General Government of the Island of Cuba. 

Most Excellent Sir: Under date of to-day this office says to the 
consul of the United States in this city as follows: In order to close the 
record of the investigation being made by the Spanish Government of 
the causes which brought about the catastrophe to the Maine there 
only remains to proceed to an inspection of the exterior and interior of 
the vessel where the explosion occurred, to which end it is deemed in- 
dispensable (in order to give the investigation greater legal weight) 
that our divers in their inspection be accompanied by those of the 
American Government, and no conclusive reply having been yet received 
from Y. H. so as to proceed as indicated, I pray you to be pleased to 
order or request the proper party to see that the said American divers 
unite with the Spaniards for the purpose of making a minute of the in- 
spection, permitting myself also to beg you to fix a time as soon as 
possible. Which I have the honor to transmit to Y. E. for the purposes 
indicated. 

God preserve Y. E. many years. 

Havana, February 25, 1898. 

Ramon Blanco. [Rubric] 

order. 

Most Excellent Oommandant-General of the station: 
Refer to the captain of frigate Don Pedro del Feral, fiscal, for proper 
disposition. 

Havana, Mar. 1, 1898. 

Manterola. [Kubric] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, February twenty -five of 1898. 
These proceedings are suspended to await the reply to see whether 
the bottom of the Maine may be inspected by the divers of our Govern- 
ment. Certified. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric. 
Peral. [Rubric/ 

MINUTE. 

HAVANA, Mar eh first, eighteen hundred and ninety eight. 
There are appended to these proceedings: A communication from the 
chief of the general staff enclosing an invoice of medicines furnished 
by La Balear, pharmacy, amounting to one huudred and seven pesos 
(sixty-five cents) gold, two communications sent by the head of the 
office of the harbor master of Havana, relating to bodies and articles 
found in the bay. A communication from the office of the subinspec- 
tor of the military board of health, accompanied by a statement of 
the wounded of the Maine, cared for in the hospitals of this place. A 
communication from the office of the commandant of the navy-yard, 
accompanied by a statement, in reply to a communication from this 
court; five photographs of the Maine taken from different points after 
the catastrophe. 

A communication from the general government of the island, trans- 
mitted by the same, informing that it had communicated with the 
consul of the United States regarding the necessary of proceeding to 
the inspection of the bottom of the Maine, by Spanish divers. Certified. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 615 

ORDER. 

Ill Havana, on the first of March, of eighteen hundred and ninety- 
eight, the judge ordered the continuing of these proceedings by reason 
of having received verbal authority from the Captain-General's office 
to proceed to the inspection of the bottom of the Maine, by this court. 
His honor so ordered, before me, the secretary, who certifies. 

Javier de Salas. [Eubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, March first, eighteen hundred and ninety eight. 
I have received a communication from the office of the subinspector 
of the military board of health, amplifying a former one, already attached 
to the case. 
Certified. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

Havana, March first, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight. 
One of the navy-yard divers being ill, for greater comfort and dispatch 
in the work, the office of the Captain-General was requested to ask the 
board of harbor works to send the official divers under them. 
Certified. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

In Havana, on the second of March of eighteen hundred and ninety- 
eight, the court moved to the vicinity of the Maine, where the divers 
and material of the board of harbor works were located, the diver 
Ramon Gonzalez going down at 9 and coming up at 9.30, and inspecting 
the port quarter. 
Certified. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubric] 
Peral. [Rubric] 

MINUTE. 

In Havaua, on the second of March of eighteen hundred and ninety- 
eight, the court again moved to the vicinity of the Maine, where were 
the divers of the board of harbor works and that of the navy-yard, 
all with the necessary equipment, witnessing the descent of the said 
Juan Hernandez and Ramon Gonzales, the former on the port side 
toward the middle and the latter at the same part of the starboard side, 
remaining under water from one o'clock until fifteen minutes after three. 

And in order that it may be of record, it is set forth by means of 
minutes which I, the secretary, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 



616 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Havana, the second of March, one thousand eight hundred and ninety- 
eight, the judge determined to communicate orally to the superior author- 
ities the result of the preliminary examination made by the divers on this 
day, in the event of its being deemed expedient to transmit the same 
to the Government of His Majesty, reporting that the one who inspected 
the port side did not reach the point where the vessel is broken, and 
that the one on the starboard side saw about the middle large pieces 
of plates bent outward, as well as coal strewn on the outside; the find- 
ings of the day not being more extensive by reason of the deep mine, 
which impeded progress, and of the wreckage, which caused stumbling. 

So dictated his honor before me, the secretary, who certifies. 

Javier db Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

General Navy Headquarters of the Havana 

Station and Squadron of the Antilles, 

Staff Third Division, Section 2. 
The commander of the ironclad is hereby directed to be pleased to 
order that the diver of his ship be present at seven to-morrow at the 
Machina of San Fernando, at the disposal of your honor, with the requi- 
site equipment, to assist in the work of examining the bottom of the 
United States ironclad Maine. I state this to your honor for your 
information and as the consequence of your note of this date. 
God guard your honor for many years. 
Havana, March 2, 1898. 

Manterola. [Sign manual.] 

The investigating judge, 

Captain Don Pedro del Peral y Caballero. 

minutes. 

Havana, March 3, 1898. 
It is made of record by means of minutes that owing to the prevail- 
ing rain and in consequence of the turbidness of the water the work 
of the divers has been suspended for this day. I so certify* 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 3, 1898. 
It was requested of the superior authorities that the diver of the 
Vizcaya be directed to assist, with the equipment of his occupation, in 
the work of the divers of the navy-yard and of the harbor works. I 
so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 4, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Hernandez and Gonzalez of the harbor works, and 
Alvarez and Abellieras of the navy-yard, who proceeded with their 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 617 

examination, remaining under water, two at a time alternately, from 
7 to 9 in the forenoon and from 12 to 3^ in the afternoon. It is made 
of record by means of minutes, which I, the secretary, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

DEPOSITION OF DON FRANCISCO ALDRES T CASAMES. 

Havana, on the fourth of March, one thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-eight, appeared in this court, on verbal summons, the person 
named in the margin, who, being cautioned as to the obligation of 
speaking the truth and the penalty provided by law for false testimony, 
swore to tell the truth, and being asked the usual questions in the law, 
declared himself and his name to be D. Francisco Aldres y Oasames, 
of age, married, a graduated assistant engineer of Public Works, an 
industrial engineer presently in the employ of the Board of Harbor 
Works, without any interest whatever in the case under investigation. 
Being asked whether he had effected works for the removal of sunken 
hulls in the bay, said that he effected the removal of sunken hulls at 
Tallapiedra, that of the hull of the American steamer City of liionda, 
done the work required for the site of the dry dock and that recently 
concluded to blow up the shoal Feliciano. 

Being asked what explosives he used for the purpose, in what quan- 
tity, and what were the effect and consequences, said that he used an 
American explosive called Rancka — rock similar to dynamite number 
3; that he used it in quantities of from 5 to 25 pounds; that the effects 
of small quantities have been insignificant on the outside when the 
cartridges were placed more than two meters deep, and that with the 
medium and larger charges it was observed that there were projections 
of water, more or less high, according to the charge and depth; it 
drags considerable mire from the bottom and with it a greater or less 
number of dead fish, which appear on the surface sometimes one hun- 
dred meters distant from the place where the explosion took place, 
there always being found a larger number dead at the bottom or within 
the hulls worked on; that flames were never seen to issue at the sur- 
face, nor was there any volume of smoke sufficient to be perceived, as 
it were, the color being white in every case; that the effects of the 
explosions were always felt by the vessels near the spot where they 
took place, and that at distances of from 500 to 1,000 meters the hulls 
felt as if they had been struck a hard blow, but without consequences. 

And at this stage this deposition was suspended, read by the witness, 
who affirmed and ratified its contents, subscribing it with the judge and 
in the presence of the secretary, who certifies. 

Francisco Aldoys. [Sign manual.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Sign manual.] 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 4, 1898. 
Copy was made of the plans of the Maine, furnished by her late com- 
mander, Mr. Sigsbee, a draftsman of the navy-yard, doing duty at 
the artillery headquarters, being sent for to do the work. Saw plans, 
which will be appended to these inoceedings, were examined to the end 
of dividing and distributing the work of the divers. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 



618 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

DEPOSITION OF THE MERCHANT NAVIGATING OFFICER DON MIGUEL 

GONZALAZ FRAV1ESO. 

At Havana, on the fourtb of March, one thousand eight hundred 
and ninety-eight, appeared before the court the officer named in the 
margin, who, being cautioned as to the interrogatories about to be put 
to him and the penalties incurred by those who give false testimony, 
swore to tell the truth, and, being asked the usual questions, declared 
himself and his name to be Don Miguel Gonzalez Fravieso, twenty- 
seven years old, of age, native of Castropol, Asturias, merchant navigat- 
ing officer, and at present in the position of first officer of the steamer 
San Juan. 

Being asked whether in the night of the 15th of February, of the 
present year, he was in the harbor and witnessed the blowing up of the 
Maine, as well as such particulars in connection therewith as might 
throw light on the proceedings, he said that he was on board the San 
Juan, then under repairs at Eegla, lying in his bunk; that he awoke at 
the sound of the explosion, imagining that somemisfortunehad happened 
in the bay, and believing that it might well be on one of our war ves- 
sels. That he ordered the boat to be manned by four men and proceeded 
toward the channel of the harbor, when he saw flames beginning to 
issue from a certain point which he approached, the Maine turning 
out to be the vessel on fire; that on arriving he found there four boats 
from our war vessels, and one which he believes might have been 
from the Mexico, some being very near and others fastened to the 
stern of the Maine, picking up and giving assistance to wounded men; 
that of American boats he only saw one, a merchant yoste, which I 
suppose was from the Washington, whither the wounded men were 
likely taken, for one could hear the moaning and crying coming from 
that vessel; that he was unable to pick up any wounded man or sea- 
man, and after a short while withdrew, leaving the boats from the war 
vessels. 

Being asked whether he saw any boat from the Washington other than 
that above mentioned, he said that he saw no other, and that at the same 
moment the Washington weighed anchor and moored at San Jose. 

And this deposition was suspended and read by the witness, who 
affirmed and ratified its contents, subscribing it with the judge in the 
presence of the secretary, who certifies. 

Miguel Gonzalez Fraiveso. [Sign manual.] 
Pedro del Peral. [Sign manual.] 
Javier de Sal a. [Sign manual.] 

DEPOSITION OF COMMODORE DON MANUEL ELISA Y VERGARA. 

At Havana, on the fourth of March, one thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-eight, appeared, on summons, the officer named in the margin, 
who, being advised of the obligation resting on him to tell the truth and 
of the penalties incurred by those who give false testimony, swore to tell 
the truth, and being asked the usual questions, under the law, declared 
himself and his name to be Don Manuel Elisa y Vergara, commodore; 
married; of age; declaring to have no interest whatever, direct or 
indirect, in the case under investigation. 

Being asked whether, during the time while the ship under his com- 
mand was moored to one of the buoys near to the site for the dry dock, 
he felt any perceptible or considerable trepidations resulting from the 
submarine explosions that took place there, he said that toward the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 619 

month of August or thereabout there took place small submarine explo- 
sions for the purpose, as he believed, of blowing up some rocks which 
impeded the work of the dredges on the site of the dry dock. 

His ship, which is the cruiser Alfonso XII, experienced trepidations 
which alarmed him at first, and he reported to the admiral of the 
squadron for his opinion as to whether he thought it expedient that his 
mooring should be changed so as to avoid injury to his ship from the 
repetition of this effect, and in consequence made fast to the buoy at 
Friscornia, belonging to the steamers of the French line. Being asked 
in regard to the thickness of the plates on the sides of his ship at the 
bottom, he said that it is approximately a half inch (Spanish). And at 
this point this declaration was suspended, and after reading, affirming, 
and ratifying it, he subscribed it with the judge and the secretary, who 
certifies. 

Manuel de Elisa. [Sign manual.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Sign manual.] 
Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 5, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Hernandez and Gonzales, of the harbor works, 
and Alvarez and Abelliera, of the navy-yard, who proceeded with the 
examination, remaining under water two at a time, alternately, toward 
the bow, all on the starboard side, from 7 to 9 in the forenoon and from 
12 to 3^ in the afternoon. 

It is made of record by means of minutes which I, the secretary, 
certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 5, 1898. 
There was submitted to the superior authorities, for their approval, 
an account of the expenses of this court up to this day, amounting- to 
one hundred and eighty dollars (Spanish) sixty-five cents, gold. I so 
certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 6, 1898. 
The divers did not work, this being a holiday. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

ORDER. 

Havana, March 7, 1898. 
The judge, with the plans of the Maine under his eyes, determined 
to make a distribution of the work to the divers, charging them espe- 
cially to direct their work to the finding the stem of the ship and the 



620 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

forward turret in order to take these at once for starting points and 
keep up the full examination of the submerged part. 

So dictated his honor before me, the secretary, who certifies. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 8, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Hernandez and Gonzalez, of the board of harbor 
works, and Alvarez and Abelliera, of the navy-yard, who proceeded 
with their examination, remaining under the water from 7 to 9 in the 
forenoon and 12 to 3 in the afternoon. 

It is made of record by means of minutes which I, the secretary, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 9, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed 
the descent of the divers Gonzalez and Hernandez of the board of 
harbor works, and Alvares and Abelliera, of the navy-yard, who pro- 
ceeded with the examination, remaining under water from 7 to 9 in 
the forenoon and from 12 to 3 in the afternoon. It is made of record 
by means of minutes which I, the secretary, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

minutes. 

Havana, March 10, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Gonzalez and Hernandez, alternating from 12 to 
3 in the afternoon. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 11, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Gonzalez and Hernandez of the board of harbor 
works, who worked alternately from 12 to 3 in the afternoon. I so 
certify. Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 12, 1898. 
A report of the salient occurrences and facts of the night of the 
Maine disaster was asked officially of the chiefe of the companies of 
firemen in this capital. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 621 

MINUTES. 

Havana, M arch 12, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Gonzalez and Hernandez, of the board of harbor 
works, who worked alternately from 12 to 3 in the afternoon. I so 
certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

Navy General Headquarters of the Havana Station 

and Squadron of the Antilles. 
Staff division 3, Section 2, "Clases." 
I have to say to your honor, in reply to your polite note of this 
day, that I have obtained from the chief of harbor works here two 
divers, with the necessary equipment, who are to be at your disposal 
to-morrow at 7 in the forenoon, near the ironclad Maine. 
God guard your honor for many years. 
Havana, first of March, 1898. 

Manterola. [Sign manual.] 
The investigating judge, Captain Don Pedro del Peral y 
Baballero. 

[Confidential.] 

Navy General Headquarters of the Havana Station 

and Squadron of the Antilles. Staff-Division. 
The most excellent minister in a cipher cablegram dated the 10th 
instant, writes as follows : Advisable you expedite as much as you can 
the conclusion report Maine so that it precede Americans. In trans- 
mitting this to your honor I do so to the end that, taking into con- 
sideration the wishes of the national government you may use, if that 
be possible, more expedition than has been done heretofore, in order to 
comply with the cablegram. 

God guard your honor for many years. 
Havana, 11 March, 1898. 

Manterola. [Sign manual.] 
Captain D. Pedro del Peral, 

Investigating Judge in the case of the Ironclad Maine. 

[Telegram.] 

Office of the Governor-General of the Island of Cuba, 

Washington, February 19, 1898. 
Consul-General Lee, Havana: 

The Government of the United States has already commenced an 
investigation concerning the causes which occasioned the disaster of the 
Maine through the medium of naval officers appointed especially for the 
purpose, who will conduct this investigation independently. This Gov- 
ernment will extend every possible facility to the Spanish authorities for 
the investigations thev may wish to make on their part. 

Day. 

A true copy. Jose Congosto. [Sign manual.] 

[Telegram.] 

Office of the Governor-General of the Island of Cuba, 

Havana, February 18, 1898. 
Sigsbee begins work to-morrow with divers who have been sent him 
from the United States to recover the bodies that still remain in the 



622 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

Maine, as well as personal effects of the officers and crew, and also any- 
other article that may be secured. After this the Spanish Government 
wishes to unite with ours, to the end of examining the hull of the ship 
and the bottom of the harbor around the same. 

Lee. 
A true copy. 

J. Oongosto. [Sign manual.] 

Office of the Governor-General 

of the Island of Cuba. 

Most Excellent Sir: The consul-general of the United States at this 
capital has just addressed me the following note: 

" I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication 
of the 25th instant. In reply I take the liberty of inclosing a copy of 
my telegram to the Assistant Secretary of State at Washington, refer- 
ring to the subject, and also the reply of that Department. It is to be 
observed that the Government of the United States thinks that the 
investigation by the two governments is to be independent, but that 
every kind of facilities will be granted to your Government for the 
prosecution of such investigation as it may think expedient. I shall 
confer with Captain Sigsbee on the matter and will suggest that he call 
on the admiral of the naval station, and I do not doubt that these two 
officers may agree upon some plan that will be satisfactory to all. I 
am sure that neither Government has any other object than to eluci- 
date all the facts connected with the explosion on the Maine, and that 
the main desire of both Governments is to proceed in harmony with 
the investigations." 

I have the honor to transmit the foregoing to your honor with the 
translated copies of the two telegrams referred to, for such ends as 
may be expedient. 

God guard your honor for many years. 

Havana, February 26, 1898. 

Eamon Blanco. [Sign manual.] 

Most excellent naval commander-general of the station Providencia. 

With the two annexed copies of the telegrams, let the present letter 
be turned over to Captain D. Pedro del Peral, prosecuting attorney 
(judge-advocate), for the ends thereto appertaining. 

Havana, March 15, L898. 

Court of Investigation. 

Most Excellent Sir: In the investigation conducted by me in the mat- 
ter of the catastrophe of the Maine there are needed certain data which 
this court does not know where to rind. I therefore turn to your excel- 
lency and beg that you may secure the same from the proper quarter. 
The said data are as follows : Ordnance carried by the ship, parts of the 
ship where the same was placed, quantity and nature of ammunition, 
and powder in the forward magazines. 

God guard your excellency for many years. 

Havana, March 16, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Sign manual.] 

Most excellent commander-general of the station, Apostadero. 

Let the present be transmitted to the most excellent and illustrious 
Governor-General of the island, and let him be asked to be pleased to 
secure from the consul of the United States the requested data, and 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 623 

let the present letter be returned to the judge-advocate, who signs it, 
for the ends thereto appertaining. 
Havana, March 16, 1898. 

Menterola. '* [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 12, 1898. 
An official note from the superior authority transmitting a cipher 
telegram from the most excellent minister of the navy was received 
and is made part of these proceedings. 1 so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 12, 1898. 
An official letter from the superior authority announcing that the 
help in equipment and divers has been secured from the board of works 
of the harbor, as requested, is made part of the proceedings. I so 
certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual. J 
Peral. [Sign manual. J 

minutes. 

Havana, March 13, 1898. 
This being a holiday the work of the divers is suspended. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 14, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Hernandez and Gonzalez, of the board of harbor 
works, and Alvarez and Abellieras, of the navy-yard, who worked from 
12 to 3J in the afternoon. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 15, 1898. 
The court repaired to the. location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Hernandez and Gonzalez, of the harbor works, 
and Alvarez and Abelleira, of the navy-yard, who worked from 12 to 3£ 
in the afternoon. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual. J 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 16,1898. 
Copies of two telegrams, one from the Secretary of State of the 
United States to the consul of his country at this capital, and the other 
from said consul to the Government of Washington, accompanied by 



624 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

an official letter of the Governor-General of the island transmitting the 
reply of the consul to previous official correspondence, were received 
and are made part of these proceeding's. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 16, 1898. 
An official letter went to the most excellent commander general of 
the station, asking bim to obtain from the proper quarter certain data 
as to the ordnance carried by the Maine, the location of the same; the 
quantity and kinds of ammunition and powder in the forward maga- 
zines. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

March 16, 1898. 
A reply to the official note in the foregoing minutes is received and 
made part of the proceedings. 1 so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. Sign manual. 

MINUTES. 

Havana, March 16, 1898. 
The court repaired to the location of the Maine and witnessed the 
descent of the divers Hernandez aud Gonzalez, of the board of harbor 
works, and Alverez and Abelliera, of tlie navy-yard, who worked from 
12 to 3J in the afternoon, alternately. I so certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Sign manual.] 
Peral. [Sign manual.] 

MINUTES. 

March 17, 1898. 
The court repaired near the Maine, witnessing the descent of the 
divers of the arsenal and of the board of works of the port, who worked 
from 12 to 3£ p. m. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 

OFFICIAL ACT OR PROCEEDING. 

Havana, March 18, 1898. 
The court went near to the place where the Maine was, and witnessed 
the descent of the divers, who worked alternately from 12 to 3^ p. in. 
1 certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 625 

ORDER. 

Havana, February 19, 1898. 
His honor ordered that the work of the divers in examining the 
Maine should be considered as ended, and proceeded to take their depo- 
sitions, for which purpose they were summoned to appear on Monday, 
the 21st. Thus his honor ordered before me, the clerk of the court, 
who certify. 

Javier de Sal as. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF RAMON GONZALEZ, DIVER. 

In the city of Havana, on the 21st day of March, 1898, appeared, 
having been duly summoned, the diver above named, who, having 
been admonished that he was under strict obligations to tell the truth, 
and having been warned of the penalties to which any person sub- 
jected himself by bearing false witness, made oath that he would tell 
the truth, and, being asked the usual preliminary questions, said that 
his name was Ramon Gonzalez y Gravote; that he was a native of 
Santa Cruz de Teneritfe, married, 38 years of age, and a diver in the 
employ of the board of works of the port; he said that he had no 
interest, either direct or indirect, in the case now before the court. 

When asked whether he had worked in the examination of the bot- 
tom and the sunken portion of the American irondad Maine, and if 
so, how many days, and with what result, he said that he had, indeed, 
worked in the examination of the sunken portion of the Maine from 
the 2d day of the current month until the 18th without interruption, 
except on holidays, and on one day when the rain prevented him from 
working; that he had been every day, and that he could recapitulate 
what he had seen in the following; that he began the examination on 
the port side, aft, but did not find any serious damage there; that he 
examined the spaces occupied by the boilers, forward, on both sides, 
and found that all the plates, which had apparently formed the sides, 
were bent outwards; that, in the center of the hull, there was such a 
mass of plates, irons, cable conductors (apparently for electric light), 
pieces of wood (projectiles, some whole and others broken) together 
with other objects, that it was impossible to get down into the hull of 
the vessel. 

That in examining the forward part, on the starboard side, he found a 
small anchor, broken on one side; that, throughout an extent of two 
or three fathoms, it was found to be intact, although bulging out- 
wards; continuing the same examination, forward, on the same port 
side, a double bottom was found in which there was apparently no 
break whatever; that, moreover, there were found on the port side of 
the same double bottom an orlop-gangway, the sides of which were 
intact, and within several pieces of iron, melted and broken, which had 
evidently stopped there; that, when the water around the vessel was 
examined, in a radius of from 50 to 60 metres, remnants of plates, hand- 
rails, and shapeless masses of all kinds and sizes were found, it being 
impossible to tell from what part of the vessel they were. 

The bottom was found to be full of mud, without any cavity what- 
ever except those caused by objects which fell during the explosion ; 
that the bilge and keel of the vessel, throughout its entire extent, were 
buried in the mud, but did not appear to have suffered any damage; 
that he did not find the large turret on the starboard side, forward, 
40 



626 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

nor could he form a correct idea of anything" more, because the con- 
fusion of objects prevented him from penetrating into the interior 
portion of the vessel ; that the point of rupture was at the same height, 
both on the port and starboard sides; that the rupture was caused by 
the uniting of two plates, the aft plate remaining intact, and the rivets 
which fastened it having been broken in two, their heads remaining in 
their places on the inside, and the rest outside of their orifices. 

That some coal was found outside of the coal bunkers, on the mud, on 
both sides ; that on the port side there was a boat of the kind propelled by 
steam, apparently uninjured, or at most with but slight injuries. There 
was another boat, farther aft, hanging from its davits in the uninjured 
portion of the vessel. 

Here the deposition ended, and deponent read it and ratified its 
contents, and signed it with his honor the judge, and with the clerk of 
the court, who certifies. 

Ramon Gonzalez Garaeote (sic). [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF JUAN HERNANDEZ, DIVER. 

In the city of Havana, on the 21st day of March, 1898, appeared the 
aforesaid diver, who, having been admonished that he was under strict 
obligations to tell the truth, and was warned of the penalties incurred 
by any person who bears false witness, made oath that he would tell 
the truth, and being asked the usual preliminary questions, he said 
that his name was Juan Hernandez y Cabrera, a native of Santa Cruz, 
in Teneriffe, married, 29 years of age, a diver in the employ of the 
board of works of the port. He declared that he had no interest, 
either direst or indirect, in the case before the court. 

He was then asked whether he had worked in examining the bottom 
of the Maine and the submerged portion of that vessel, how many 
days he had worked, and with what result. In reply to which he said 
that he had worked from the 2d to the 18th day of the current month 
without any interruption except on holidays and rainy days, and that 
he had seen the following: That he began to examine on the starboard 
side of the vessel, beginning aft and going forward, but found nothing 
remarkable until the point of rupture marked in the plan, which corre- 
sponds exactly to the forward side of the coal bunkers in the center 
from port to starboard; that the rupture of the side is perfectly well 
marked in the joining of the vertical plates; that the plates which run 
aft are intact, their rivets being preserved, together with their heads 
on the inner side, and the separated plate without the riveted portion 
or head which belonged to it; that in the portion comprised between 
the rupture and the rear portion of the vessel there was a boat hang- 
ing from its davits with a canvas cover, and that he examined from the 
point of rupture, going aft without finding any side or plates of that 
kind for a distance from the prow of 5 or meters; that it was almost 
intact, although not down toward the outside portion. 

That he there found an anchor broken in the side and a chain which 
went from the hawsehole, which is in the chain box ; that in the place 

in which was the plates are seen which have fallen upon the mud, 

always toward the outside ; that on a more careful examination a 
part was found which had apparently belonged to the hold of the vessel, 
because there appeared a double bottom, one portion of which was 
detached from the other by vertical plates which divided it into small 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 627 

compartments communicating with each other through large oval holes; 
that near to the coal bunkers, on that side toward the forward part of 
the rupture, a quantity of coal was found scattered over the mud ; that 
projectiles for the cannon were likewise seen of ten inches, and also of 
6, and also for rapid-tiring guns and even of Mauser rifles, some of them 
having burst and others being whole ; that when examined on the out- 
side throughout an extent equal to one-half of the length of the vessel 
around the hull remnants were found, more or less large, of plates, 
timbers, utensils, etc., at the bottom, which consists of loose mud, 
without any hole or cavity, presenting a uniform aspect. 

That, examining the side on the starboard, the rupture was found at 
the same height as on the other side, with the difference that the for- 
ward part does not exist, and that on this sic^e the remnants hurled out 
of the vessel are less numerous; that the part of the side which exists 
is knocked down on to the mud as far as the point of rupture; that on 
the inside of the vessel it has been impossible to make a careful exami- 
nation on account of the pile of plates, irons, electric cables, and 
fragments of all kinds which prevent this; the filthy condition of the 
water likewise renders such work difficult; that they saw jars of pow- 
der, some of which had burst, aud another — only one — was entire with 
the bag inside. This deposition stopped here and deponent signed it, 
after having read it and having ratified it; he signed it with his honor 
the judge and with the clerk of the court, who certifies. 

Juan Hernandez. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF JOSE MANUEL ALVAREZ. 

In the city of Havana, on the 21st day of March, 1S98, appeared the 
above named diver, who, having been admonished that lie was under 
strict obligation to tell the truth, and being warned of the penalties 
incurred by any person who bears false witness, made oath that he 
would tell the truth, and being asked the usual preliminary questions 
he said that his name was Josy Manuel Alvarez Muhiz, a native of 
Asturias, 37 years of age, and married, and that he had been a diver 
in the navy siuce the year 1887; he said that he was not interested, 
either directly or indirectly, in the case before the court. Being asked 
w r hether he had worked in the examination of the bottom and the sub- 
merged portion of the North American ironclad Maine, he said that he 
had indeed worked from the 2d day of the current month until the 
18th, except on holidays and the 3d day of the month, which was rainy, 
and also the I lth, 12th, and 10th, when they were working on a Nor- 
wegian steamer in the clock. 

He said that he began the examination at the point of rupture on 
the starboard side, and that he could not distinguish or reconstruct any 
portion of the vessel from that point, because the plates were in differ- 
ent positions and many of them were buried; that of the iron plates 
he only saw a few on the port side toward the middle; that the vessel 
in her forward half was broken up, and that in her inner portion the 
examination was difficult, especially when they were at work, because 
the American divers were working there; that the lowest portion of 
the vessel must be buried, and that among the plates and scattered 
pieces there is not one that can appear or be of the keel; that there 
were no cavities or rough places or large holes in the bottom, and that 

on the starboard side this appears higher than on the , which 

leads to the presumption that it was buried more on this side. 



628 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

That he did not find the turret; that on the starboard side, forward, 
he had the vessel attempting to look for it by soundings and examina- 
tions for more than 30 meters away from the vessel without any result 
whatever; that he found a steamboat which had been knocked out of 
the vessel on the port side that was apparently uninjured ; that he could 

not catch the stem of the boat or with the , to which the vessel 

was tied, or with any cannon; that he saw large pieces of the deck and 
of the side of the steamer lying at the bottom and being inverted. For 
instance, the wooden portion of the deck lay at the bottom and the 
wrong side was exposed, showing the beams ; that they thought they had 
found the stem, but on a careful examination it appeared that it was not 
the stem; that he found the foremast forward .and on the port side, 
away from the vessel, without yards and broken, and they saw on the 
starboard side forward a large anchor without stock, but with its chain 
whole. 

That he saw on the starboard side, about 20 meters from the hull, 
a number of hand rails, and a gun carriage with its wheels; that on the 
inside it was impossible for him to see anything more, not only on 
account of the confusion with which things were piled up but because 
the American divers prevented him from working or from undertaking 
to work there. 

This deposition stopped here, and deponent read it, ratifying and 
signing it, together with his honor the'judge, and with me, the clerk of 
the court, who certifies. 

Jose Manuel Alvarez. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Flourish.] 
Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF CRISTOBAL ABELLEIRAS. 

In the city of Havana, on the 21st day of March, 1S98, appeared the 
above-named diver, who, being admonished that he was under strict 
obligations to be truthful, and warned of the penalties incurred by any 
person who bears false witness, made oath that he would tell the truth; 
and being asked the usual preliminary questions, he said that bis name 
was Cristobal Abelleiras Serantes, that he was a native of Ferrol, 34 
years of age, married, and that he had been a diver in the navy since 
1891. He said that he had no interest, either direct or indirect, in the 
matter before the court. 

Being asked whether he had worked in the examinations of the 
bottom and the submerged portions of the North American ironclad 
Maine, he said that he had; that from the 2d to the 18th instant he 
had been employed in that way, with the exception of the holidays 
and of the 3d instant, Avhich was a rainy day, and also of the 10th, 
11th, and 12th instant, on which days they were working on a Nor- 
wegian steamer in the dock; that he began to examine from the point 
of rupture on the port side, and from that point no side was found and 
no plan whatever could be followed, there being everywhere an inde- 
scribable confusion of plates and pieces of the vessel; that it was 
impossible to see much on the bottom, because the water is very filthy, 
and moreover because when any motion is made there the mud becomes 
agitated and more roilly. 

That on the inside where he descended they found forward a mass 
of pipes which he thinks belonged to the torpedo chamber; that at the 
bottom there was no cavity, no crevices, and no holes worth mention- 
ing, and that the entire vessel forward appears open, having undoubt- 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 629 

edly burst toward the outside; that on the port side, forward, he fouud 
an appliance for casting anchor attached to its block on the side, and on 
the starboard side he found an anchor without stock with its chain. 
This deposition stopped here, and deponent signed it after having read 
it and ratified it with his honor, his judge, and with me, the secretary, 
who certifies. 

Cristobal Abelleira. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Peral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

On folios 160 and 161 of this examination are two plans. On folios 
162 and 163 of the same are two statements of expenditures supplied 
and to be supplied for the account of the examining court in connection 
with the disaster to the ironclad Maine. The former amount to $180.65 
and the second to $71. 

Statements of the persons who distinguished themselves most on the 
night of February 15, 1898, in connection with the disaster to the 
Maine, they having been the persons who first came to render assist- 
ance to the victims : 

The Illustrious Marquis of Esteban, municipal alcalde of Havana; 
Don Enrique Solano, second brig, gen'l. and maj. gen'l. chief of staff of 
the army of operations in this islaud. 

Don J ulio Perez, lieut. in the navy, and 

[Here follow the names of about seventy-five soldiers and sailors, with 
their ranks, and civilians, with their occupations.] 

Havana, Mch. 22, 1898. 

Pedro del Peral. [Flourish.] 

Judicial act. Havana, Mch. 22, 1898. Three communications have 
been sent to the superior authorities, one of them stating the impossi- 
bility of the continuation of the work of our divers, who are impeded 
by the labors which are being performed by the American divers; and 
another, giving a statement of the expense caused by this business from 
the 5th instant up to date; and another, containing a list of the persons 
who most distinguished themselves on the night of the disaster by the 
promptness and efficiency with which they hastened to the scene of the 
disaster. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Peral. [Flourish.] 

Judicial act, Havana, Mch. 22, 1898. 

Copies are subjoined of the statement of. expenses and of the list of 
the persons who most distinguished themselves on the night of the 
disaster which are referred to in the foregoing judicial act. I certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 
Paral. [Flourish.] 

DEPOSITION OF DON ENRIQUE FREIXAS, NAVAL LIEUTENANT. 

In the city of Havana, on the 22d clay of March, 1898, appeared, having 
been duly summoned, the above-named officer, who, having been admon- 
ished of the obligation under which he was to be truthful and of the 
penalties incurred by any person who bears false witness, made oath 



630 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

that lie would tell tbe truth, and being' the usual preliminary questions, 
he said that his name was Don Enrique Freixas y Ferran; that he was 
of full age; married; a lieutenant in the navy; employed in the office 
of the captain of the port of Havana. He declared that he was not 
interested, either directly or indirectly, in the case before the court. 

Being requested to tell all that he knew with regard to the blowing 
up of the American ironclad Maine, lie said that he heard a passenger, 
the Rev. Father Marizosa, a native of Mexico, who was on board the 
steamer City of Washington, enroute for Mexico, who witnessed the 
disaster from the steamer on board of which he was, and which had 
just anchored — that he heard Father Marizoza say that slight detona- 
tions were at first heard, similar to those of fireworks, which kept on 
increasing, and that he also saw light on board of the vessel greater 
than would have been afforded by the vessel's ordinary lights. Soon 
after the great explosion followed by the phenomena already known, 
which were seen by most of the witnesses. 

He further stated that he heard another passenger who was on board 
of the same vessel, and whose name he does not know, state the fact in 
the same manner. He added that he asked both of the aforesaid wit- 
nesses whether they had observed any motion of the water, any liquid 
column, or trembling on board of the vessel on which they were, and 
that they answered No. This deposition stopped here, and after he had 
read it the deponent signed it, with his honor, the judge, and' with me, 
the clerk of the court, who certifies. 

Enrique Frexas. [Flourish.] 

Pedro del Paral. [Flourish.] 

Javier de Salas. [Flourish.] 

Your Excellency: 

On the night of February 15 last a dreadful and extraordinary event 
disturbed the usual tranquillity and internal order of this bay. A 
mournful catastrophe had occurred on board the North American iron- 
clad Maine. 

Having been instructed by your excellency, in the letter which gave 
rise to the present proceedings, to proceed with all possible prompti- 
tude and energy to the investigation of the matter in question, I began 
my preliminary proceedings while the flames produced by the explosion 
were still rising from the vessel, and while some lesser (explosions), 
caused, no doubt, by the action of the heat upon the shells and other 
explosives, were heard at intervals. 

The undersigned immediately ordered all persons to be summoned 
who, owing to their being in the vicinity of the said vessel, could give 
any explanation or information with regard to the disaster, or any 
account of its effects, and I requested the attendance of an official inter- 
preter of the Government in order that he might act as such in the tak- 
ing of such depositions as might necessitate his services, and I wrote 
to the consul of the United States of America in this capital, request- 
ing the attendance of such of the principal officers and men of the crew 
of the Maine as might be in a condition to testify. 

As Don Francisco Javier de Salas, a lieutenant in the navy, the sec- 
retary of the court of enquiry, was asked by an American officer, a 
few minutes before the beginning of the proceedings, whether the 
explosion could have been caused by a torpedo, notwithstanding the 
emphatic expressions of public opinion, which immediately rejected 
this supposition as absurd, and which were corroborated by argu- 
ments easily understood by every naval officer, I thought it expedient 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 631 

to direct the investigation along this line on account of the facility of 
obtaining sufficient data to show the external action during the moments 
following submarine explosions, which are so peculiar in their character, 
and so well known to all who have witnessed them and studied them in 
their effects. 

The North American man-of-war Maine, of 6,682 tons displacement, 
made of steel, 318 feet in length, 57 feet beam, and 22 feet in depth, 
having double engines of 9,293 indicated horsepower, launched in New 
York in 1890, entered this port on the 24th January of this year, and 
anchored at buoy No. 4 (see the part of the plan at folio 101). 

The undersigned has heard unofficially the reason of the arrival and 
stay in these waters of the ironclad in question. For this it was suffi- 
cient to call to mind the royal order of August 11, 1882, which per- 
mits, in ordinary times of peace, the entrance of foreign squadrons 
and siugle vessels into our ports without any other restrictions than 
those prescribed by the Ordinances of the navy, and that of obedience 
to the police regulations established in those ports. 

Taking the said Buoy No. 4 as the centre, the depth of the bay varies, 
within a radius of a hundred metres, from thirty to thirty-six feet, with 
a bottom of loose mud. The Maine, when she came in, drew 22 feet, 
and the depth of the water at the place where she is sunk is 32 feet at 
the bow and 30 feet at the stern. 

On the night of the sad occurrence the Spanish cruiser Alfonso XII 

was anchored at Buoy No. 3 and the naval steam transport Legaspi at 

No. 2, distant 140 and 240 metres, respectively, from the said Buoy No. 4. 

At the moment of the explosion there was no wind and the water 

was very smooth, as it usually is in this bay at that hour. 

The rise of the tide in the harbor is one and a half feet, and high tide 
on that day was at 4 p. m. 

Before proceeding to the consideration of other data, I think it well 
to recall to your excellency's enlightened mind the phenomena which 
accompany the explosion of a submarine mine, meaning thereby what 
is known under the generic term of torpedo, and leaving aside all that 
can apply exclusively to a subterranean mine, on account of the utter 
impossibility that such -a mine could have been prepared without bat- 
teries (elementos), or even with batteries, without the knowledge of the 
authorities and of the public generally. 

The ignition of the torpedo must necessarily have been produced 
either by collision or by an electrical discharge, and as the state of the 
sea and the wind did not allow of any motion in the vessel the hypoth 
esis of a collision at that moment must be rejected, and we must con 
sider that of an electric current sent by a cable (wire) from a station 
but no traces or signs of any wire or station have been discovered. 

The phenomena observed in submarine explosions are as follows 
When the ignition takes place, the explosive substance is converted 
into a gaseous one and forms a bubble, which, owing to its ascensional 
force, tends usually to rise to the surface in a vertical line, producing 
a detonation more or less loud in proportion to the quantity of explo- 
sive material employed and the depth at which it is placed, and accom- 
panied by a column of water, the height of which is likewise in 
proportion to the two circumstances mentioned. 

At the same time a certain quaking (trepidacion) is noticed on the 
shore, which varies directly in proportion to the amount of explosive 
matter used, its greater immersion, and its nearness to the bottom; 
and, besides, a very peculiar shock is observed against the sides of 
vessels, which varies according to the distance, and which, owing to 



632 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

the incompressibility of the water, does not, according to experiments, 
diminish in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. 

Another important phenomenon, to which great weight should .be 
attached in tin's case, on account of the peculiar nature of the harbor, 
is the presence of dead fish on the surface (of the water), usually caused 
by the rupture of the natatory bladder. 

The action of torpedoes on vessels is very variable, and depends, 
besides, on the resistance of the hull which it strikes, the quantity of 
explosive matter, and the distance. 

No known case has yet been recorded where the explosion of a torpedo 
against the side of a vessel has caused the explosion of the magazines. 

As is seen by the plans (diagrams), there was nothing but powder and 
shells in the forward magazines of the Maine. 

It appears from the examination of witnesses: 

Don Julio Peres y Perera, naval lieutenant of the first class, states 
in his deposition that he was in his shears house (casa de la machina), 
about four hundred yards from the said vessel, when, at about 9.35 p. in., 
he saw an enormous blaze of fire rise toward the zenith and to a great 
height, followed by a terrible explosion. He adds that almost the 
whole of the ironclad was covered by a thick smoke, that the illumi- 
nation was instantaneously extinguished, and that an infinite number 
of colored lights passed away into space. The moment after the explo- 
sion all was dark until, a little later, the awful scene was illuminated 
by the brightness of the fire, which was certainly caused by the 
explosion. 

The witness says that other explosions, apparently of shells, followed, 
which continued until two o'clock in the morning, at which hour the 
fire began to diminish. 

The witness saw the bow sink a few minutes after the explosion, and 
he asserts that there was no column of water nor the least movement 
in the water (mar), and that there was no shaking of the land on the 
shore. 

The other depositions of witnesses confirm the description of the 
explosion given by this officer, and they all agree that they noticed no 
movement in the water, and that they felt no shock of the water, 
although some of them were on board vessels as near the Maine as the 
Alfonso XII. 

During the early hours of the morning the undersigned, accompanied 
by the secretary, made a close examination of the bay without finding 
any dead fish, or injuries of any kind on the piles of the piers. 

Don Francisco Aldao, the head pilot, testifies (page 80 and back) 
that the harbor of Havana abounds in fish, and that there are persons 
who devote themselves to this industry with profit, and the technical 
assistant of the junta of the harbor works, Seiior Arclois, who has 
been engaged upou them for many years, states that, without any 
exception, whenever small blasts have been made with charges (of 
powder) varying from five to twenty-five pounds, for the purpose of 
blowing up hulls of vessels, loose rock, and even shoals in the bay, a 
great number of dead fish have been found inside the hulls or floating 
on the surface of the water. 

For the purpose of procuring the greatest possible number of data, 
several experiments were made, to which the diagrams at pages 160 
and 101 refer. 

In continuation of the investigation, on the lGth February the United 
States consul was requested, through your excellency, to procure the 
attendance of some of the surviving officers and sailors of the Maine y 
in order to receive such testimony as they might see fit to give with 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 633 

regard to the occurrence. On the same day, through the same medium, 
permission was requested to examine the bottom of the vessel. On the 
18th February I again applied to your excellency to procure from the 
commander of the Maine, either directly or through his consul, exact 
information as to the quantity of explosives still existing in that part 
of the vessel which had not been burnt. On the 21st 1 went to the 
American steamer Mungus(f) for the purpose of having an interview 
with Mr. Sigsbee, the commauder of the Maine, who expressed to me 
his wish that the Spanish investigators might be present at the opera- 
tions of the American official diver. On the same day I again wrote, 
asking for permission to proceed to the examination of the ironclad. 
On the 22nd I repeated my visit to the Mangrove. : ••-- 

On the 19th February the authorities had replied, stating that by 
agreement with the commander of the Maine and the United States 
consul-general the examination requested in my letter of the 18th 
would be made as soon as those gentlemen received the appliances and 
divers whom they had asked for. 

On the 24th I received an important communication, dated February 
17, enclosing one from his excellency the Governor-General of this island, 
stating that the commander of the Maine, upon being consulted as to 
the steps necessary to the success of this investigation, had replied 
that he expected to execute all the operations necessary to the exami- 
nation of the vessel which had been under his command under his own 
supervision, in accordance with the provisions of the regulations of the 
American Navy. 

It was at last possible to make use of the new mode of investiga- 
tion offered by the work of the divers, as it was discovered from what 
they have accomplished up to this date that the hull of the wrecked 
vessel is apparently buried in the mud, and that the examination of 
the outside is impracticable, but that it may be possible to examine the 
inside when the multitude of articles of all kinds which are lying in 
confusion in it have been removed. 

The divers, having been instructed to examine and describe every- 
thing that they might notice at the bottom of the bay and nearest to 
the sunken vessel, reported that they had not found in the mud which 
forms the bottom any inequalities or fissures — such as the examination 
of the bottom of the bay at the piace occupied by the Maine and the 
hull (calado) of the vessel would doubtless have brought to light, on 
the supposition that a torpedo had been the cause of the catastrophe. 
This imaginary explosive apparatus (artificio) must necessarily, in this 
case, have been placed at the very bottom of the bay or very near it, 
and when it exploded would have caused the gases to react upon it, 
and, at the same time that it produced a greater effect upon the water 
upward it would have made large fissures (deform aciones) in the mud. 

It appears from the examination of the wreck of the Maine, part of 
which is afloat, made by the undersigned, the commandants of artillery, 
the commandant of engineers, and the commander of the torpedo bri- 
gade, the report of which appears at page 24, that whatever may have 
been the original cause of the disaster, there is no doubt that there was 
an explosion in the forward magazine, which entirely destroyed the 
decks and bulkheads, which now display the appearance of a shapeless 
mass of boards, bars, and pipes of metal, very difficult to describe. In 
particular, may be noticed a large fragment of the forward deck, which 
must have been raised in the most violent manner and bent double 
toward the stern by the forward stack house, like an immense sheet of 
iron, with a considerable inclination to starboard, which, upon turning 
over, hurled out of the ship the forward turret containing two guns, 



634 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

which was situated cm the starboard side, and another gun with a shield 
which was placed within the ship on the second deck. When the deck 
was bent double, as has been said, the smokestacks must have fallen. 
On the present upper side of this deck may be seen the beams and the 
knees which fastened them to the sides of the ship. 

The whole stern is submerged, with the mainmast in place and intact, 
so much of it as can be seen above the surface of the water, including 
the lights (glasses) of the skylights of the cabin hatchways, and the 
glasses of one projector (proyector). 

The gentlemen above mentioned assert that the injuries described 
could only have been caused by the explosion of the forward magazine. 

In order to give a better idea of the general appearance presented by 
that part of the ship which has been described, photographs were taken, 
which are shown at page 125 and following. 

Notwithstanding what has been stated, it is proper to insist upon the 
fact that there is not a single instance on record, as has been already 
said, where the external action of a torpedo against the side of a vessel 
has caused the explosion of its magazines, although many vessels are 
recorded as having been totally destroyed by torpedoes, as may be 
proved by C. SSleeinan's work entitled Torpedoes and Torpedo War- 
fare, published in London in 1889, in which treatise there is a detailed 
account, extending from page 330 to page 338, inclusive, of the princi- 
pal events of this nature which have occurred from 1585 to 1885; and 
this inventory of marine disasters includes a great number of United 
States men-of-war which destroyed Confederate vessels by means of 
torpedoes. 

H. W. Wilson's treatise, Volume II, published in 1896, and entitled 
Ironclads in Action. Naval Warfare from 1855 to 1895 may also be 
consulted on this subject. 

On the other hand, there are recorded in the history of all the 
nations in the world, and especially in modern times, a proportionate 
number of events sufficing to prove the comparative facility with 
which ships of war are liable to become the victims of unknown and 
fatal accidents, owing to combinations which may result from the 
various and complicated materials employed in their construction and 
armament, as it is, in many cases, impossible to guard against them 
except at the cost of terrible calamities. 

The knowledge of the spontaneous combustion of the coal in the 
coal bunkers is within the reach of all, and there is not a navy officer 
who can not relate some sad episode attributed to this cause. 

This danger is increased when the coal bunkers are separated from 
the powder and ammunition magazines only by a bulkhead of iron or 
steel, and it becomes imminent when the heat developed in the coal is 
conveyed to the magazines, as has happened in several cases. To pre- 
vent them recourse has been had to the study of a ventilation sufficient 
to prevent the accumulation of gases and the development of caloric, 
taking, in addition, the temperature of the coal bunkers at proper 
intervals. In spite of all this, cases of spontaneous combustion have 
occurred repeatedly, and it is astonishing that the powder and shell 
magazines should still continue to be placed in immediate contact with 
the coal bunkers. 

Don Saturnino Montojo, an illustrious lieutenant in our navy, relates 
a very remarkable case which happened to the unfortunate Reina 
Regente when she was being built at Clydebank. Senor Montojo says 
that the shafts of the screws passed through several water-tight com- 
partments, which together formed a tunnel for the passage of the 
shaft. The compartment on the port side of that of the wheel of the 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 635 

helm was furnished with a register (registro) for the purpose of inspect- 
ing the shaft, and upon a workman attempting to draw out a small 
screw there was an explosion causing a small fracture of the side on 
the exterior, and filling the stern compartments of the vessel with 
water; but the ship did not sink entirely, thanks to the other water- 
tight compartments and to the powerful pumps with which the ship 
was provided, which were set to work, and kept her afloat. 

This accident was attributed to the fact that the compartment in 
question had no ventilation. It is evident that gases are formed in any 
of the places mentioned by the electric action developed by the fatty 
substances combined with the paint, the water, etc. 

If there is any ventilation, these gases have an outlet, but if there is 
none they accumulate and finally acquire a certain tension, and when 
they are brought into contact with a light or sufficient heat their explo- 
sion follows, as frequently occurs in mines and coal bunkers. The 
eighty or ninety (coal bunkers) of the Reina Begente had each a venti- 
lation pipe and a temperature pipe. If, notwithstanding all this, any 
accident should obstruct or clog the ventilation, or if due attention is 
not paid to the temperature, or even when such attention is paid, if its 
indications are not good, the adoption of urgent measures of safety 
will merely diminish the danger, without making it disappear entirely. 

The loss of tlie English vessel the Dotterel, which has been so much 
studied and discussed, was due to the use of a drier (drying oil) 
employed in painting and known under thename of the "zerotina drier." 

In trade some of the varnishes and ingredients used in the painting 
of vessels are now recommended by protecting them with patents as 
not liable to produce inflammable gases. 

The English scientific magazine The Engineer, No. 2189, of Decem- 
ber 10, 1897, publishes an important article entitled "Shell accident at 
Bull Point," showing the possibility of the explosion of a shell, not by 
the fuse, but by the spontaneous breaking of the shell itself. The shell 
of which the author of the article speaks was made for a 4-inch gun, 
weighed 25 pounds, used the Leadenham fuse, and had a hardened 
point, tempered in water. 

These instances suffice to prove that, in spite of all the precautions 
that may be taken, there may occur on board of modern vessels, espe- 
cially war vessels, many unforeseen accidents, arising from the combi- 
nation of such diverse substances as those which are employed in their 
armament, so difficult and dangerous to manage, accumulated in large 
quantities and exposed to the action of heat and electricity almost con- 
stantly, each unhappy accident serving to regulate services on the basis 
of precautions, and to cause precautions to be taken, so far as possible, 
with every new agent which necessity compels us to accept in the most 
recent constructions. 

Consequently, in view of the result of the proceedings and the merits 
of the observations submitted, the undersigned considers it his imper- 
ative duty to state the following conclusions: 

First. That on the night of February 15 last an explosion of the first 
order, in the forward magazine of the American ironclad Maine, caused 
the destruction of that part of the ship and its total submersion in the 
same place in this bay at which it was anchored. 

Second. That it is learned, from the diagrams of the vessel, that 
there were no other explosive substances or articles in that magazine, 
the only one which exploded, than powder and shells of various calibers. 

Third. That the same diagrams prove that said magazine was sur- 
rounded on the port side, the starboard side, and partly aft, by coal 
bunkers containing bituminous coal, and which were in compartments 



636 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

adjoining the said magazine, and apparently separated from it only by 
metal bulkheads. 

Fourth. That the important facts connected with the explosion, in its 
external appearances, at every moment of its duration, having been 
described by witnesses, and the absence of all the circumstances which 
necessarily accompany the explosion of a torpedo, having been proved 
by these witnesses and experts, it can only be honestly asserted that 
the catastrophe was due to internal causes. 

Fifth. That the character of the proceedings undertaken and respect 
for the law which establishes the principle of the absolute extraterri- 
toriality of a foreign war vessel, have prevented the determination, 
even by conjecture, of the said internal origin of the disaster, to which, 
also, the impossibility of establishing the necessary communication, 
either with the crew of the wrecked vessel or with the officials of their 
Government commissioned to investigate the causes of the said event, 
or with those subsequently entrusted with the issue, has contributed. 

Sixth. That the interior and exterior examination of the bottom of 
the Blaine whenever it is possible, unless the bottom of the ship and that 
of the place in the bay where it is sunk are altered by the work which 
is being carried on for the total or partial recovery of the vessel, will 
prove the correctness of all that is said in this report ; but this must 
not be understood to mean that the accuracy of these present conclu- 
sions requires such proof. 

Believing that I have fulfilled all the requirements of article 246, Title 
XIV, Chapter I, of the Law of Military Procedure of the Navy, in 
accordance with which, and with your excellency's orders, this investi- 
gation has been made, I have the honor to transmit this report to your 
excellency's hands that you may come to a correct decision on the 
subject. 

Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 

Havana, March 22, 1898. 

DECREE. 

Havana, March 22, 1898. 
His excellency ordered the investigation intrusted to him to be closed 
and the proceedings to be transmitted to the superior authority for his 
action. His excellency gave this order before me, the secretary, who 
certify it. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 
Pedro del Peral. [Rubricated.] 

minute. 

Havana^ March 22, 1898. 
His excellency went, accompanied by me, the secretary, to deliver to 
his excellency the commandant general of the station, these proceed- 
ings, consisting of 181 written folios, without counting the blank ones 
or the covers. It is recorded, which I, the secretary, certify. 

Javier de Salas. [Rubricated.] 
Peral. [Rubricated.] 

The present evidence is transmitted by superior verbal order, which 
I. the secretary, certify, with the counter-signature of the judge, at 
Havana, March 28, 1898. 

Javier de Salas. 
Approved : 
Peral. 

O 



3kw 




^\ i 



^J^_Fuerte N'° 4 o dp 
S.7\ D-ieQ-o 








J.S.MAINE 



HOLD PLAN 



—\ scale: 4- ihch =?feet 

^. Y. JUNE— 1897 




U. S.S.MAINE 

HOLD PLAN 

SCALE /^INCH =JFEET 
NAVY YARD N. Y. JUNE — 1897 



55t;tt PrnvarMV.KK. ) 



SENATE. 



( Report 885, 



■ 

- 








U.S.S.MAINE 

LONCITUDINAL SECTION 

SCALE -^IWCH'PFECT. 
NAVY YARD N.Y. AUG. — J897 



55th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Report SS5, 

2d Sessior. \ I Part 2. 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 



April 18, 1898. — Ordered to be printed. 



Mr. Mills, as a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, 
submitted the following 

VIEWS. 

[To accompany S. R. 149.] 

The relations existing between iis and the people of Cuba are different 
from those existing between us and any other people on the globe. 

Our statesmen from the very beginning of our Government saw the 
absolute necessity of our control over the destiny of that island and 
its inhabitants. Its position at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, 
almost in sight of our shores, makes it an object of transcendent impor- 
tance to the United States. The waters of the Gulf of Mexico wash 
the southern boundary of five of our States. Into its bosom empty 
the floods of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, all of which are 
navigable far into the heart of the country, rendering its interior acces- 
sible to armed vessels of foreign nations. The island itself has a 
harbor within 100 miles of our territory second only to Gibraltar, and 
on whose bosom could ride in safety the navies of the world. This 
harbor, situated at our most exposed point, strong by its natural for- 
mation, could be made the most powerful fortress in the world ; and in 
possession of a strong maritime nation would be a constant menace to 
our existence, and in case of war would put us at an immense disad- 
vantage and compel us to prosecute it at a greater loss of the lives and 
property of our people. The inalienable right of self-preservation — the 
highest of all rights — gives to us the moral right to possess it if we 
think proper or to control its possession by others in order that it may 
not be used to imperil our existence or do us a great injury. The right 
to control its possession necessarily carries with it the right to control 
the government of its people. In the exercise of that right we have 

l 



2 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

decreed that the island shall remain in the possession of Spain and sub- 
ject to such laws as she shall enact for the government of its people. 

It is a well-known fact that Great Britain lias been anxious for many 
years to add Cuba to her territorial possessions. Germany and France 
have each looked with a covetous eye toward its acquisition. Had it 
not been for the position taken and maintained by the United States, 
one or the other of them would have long since acquired dominion over 
it. If we had not notified the world that it should not pass out of the 
power of Spain, and Great Britain had acquired it, its people would 
now be ruled as British subjects. If it had passed to Germany or 
France, they would have been ruled as German or French colonists. In 
any event, they would have escaped the oppression they now endure 
under the power of Spain. But we determined that Cuba should never 
go either to Great Britain, Germany, France, or any other power, Euro- 
pean or American, but that it should remain subject to Spain until 
such time as we should determine that our interests demanded that 
we should take possession of it and incorporate it into our Union, or 
until it should become independent. This we have uniformly declared, 
and this we have maintained throughout our history, and this we intend 
to continue to maintain. Therefore we have fixed the destinies of the 
people of Cuba, and it is not within the competency of their power to 
change that destiny. Whatever the oppressions they have suffered, 
are now suffering, or are to suffer in the future under Spanish misrule, 
they are all, iu a serious extent, the product of our will — the legitimate 
consequences of our conduct. 

The convulsions in Europe and America which followed the estab- 
lishment of our independence manifested to Spain and to the world the 
weakness of her hold upon her American possessions. Conscious of 
her inability to maintain her own throne in the presence of a revolution 
which was shaking all the thrones of Europe, she was stretching out 
her hands for help to hold her provinces in the Western Hemisphere, 
all of whom had caught the revolutionary contagion. In 1795, when 
our minister was engaged in negotiating the treaty of that date with 
her, she proposed that the United States, with France, would agree 
to guarantee to her. the continued possession of her American prov- 
inces. This our minister promptly declined. The subject of European 
entanglements had doubtless been the fruitful topic of many confer- 
ences among our statesmen of that day. The President who sent him 
to Europe as our representative had, no doubt, impressed upon him 
what he tried to impress upon the American people and what he so 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 3 

nappily stated in his farewell address one hundred years ago, that 
"Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a 
very remote relation." Washington had doubtless told Mr. Pinckney 
that in his negotiations he must not " entangle our peace and pros- 
perity" in European toils, We had no interest in their dynasties, 
their wars, or balances of power. We had no interest in common 
with them but "peace, commerce, and honest friendship." We could 
therefore bave no "entangling alliances" with any of them. John 
Adams, " the colossus of the Bevolution," said : " We should make no 
treaties of alliance with any European power; consent to none but 
treaties of commerce, and separate ourselves as far as possible and 
as long as possible from all European politics and wars." 

Jefferson, following Washington, and adopting Washington's expres- 
sion, said we "had a set of interests distinct from those of Europe" 
and "peculiarly our own," and that we should have a system of our 
own separate from that of Europe. He said our first maxim should 
be "never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe," and our sec- 
ond "never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis- Atlantic affairs." 
This has been our settled policy from the beginning. Mr. Madison so 
understood it during his Administration. When Spain's American 
provinces broke out in revolt against her Crown, Mr. Canning proposed 
to Mr. Madison that the United States should join England in an 
effort to settle the differences between them. Mr. Madison declined 
the invitation and said "its acceptance would be a step leading into a 
wilderness of politics and a deu of conspirators." Our greatest states- 
men recognized the fact that the European "set of interests" were 
wholly incompatible with ours, and persistently refused all invitations 
to "entangle" them. There the primary interests to be secured above 
all others are their hereditary monarchies and aristocracies. To secure 
them vast military and naval armaments are organized and maintained. 
The boundaries of their possessions are defined and maintained by 
treaties of alliance called the balance of power; colonization and con- 
quest are prosecuted by armed invasion of the territorial possessions 
of other people who are too feeble to repel their military forces, and 
by the prosecution of wars all over the earth where it may be done 
with safety, to advance the interests of one monarch or curb the 
ambition of another. 

In the European "primary set" the subject is the forgotten man. 
If his right to life, liberty, property, or happiness enters their thoughts, 
it is as a secondary and not a primary interest. In America, liberty — 



4 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

personal, civil, political, and religious — is the central thought, the pri- 
mary interest, around which all our constitutions and laws revolve. 
Here every man is a sovereign, and, as Chief Justice Jay so well said a 
century ago, "a sovereign without subjects." Here, we have ordained 
and established written constitutions to secure that great primary 
interest to which we have dedicated the Western Hemisphere. Here, 
we secure our great interests not by military and naval establishments, 
but by organized civil power supported by the will of a free people. 
Here, we do not suppress discontent by armed violence, but correct all 
abuses through the administration of civil government. We have no 
colonies or dependencies. We wage no wars of conquest. We have 
rescued this continent from the dominion of monarchies and aristocra- 
cies and dedicated it to freedom secured by republican government. 
These are the interests "peculiarly our own," and to preserve them for 
ourselves and our posterity we have drawn the lines of our security 
around the Western Hemisphere and its adjacent islands. 

In the beginning we said to the European governments, Tour posses- 
sions in this hemisphere will not be disturbed, but they shall not be 
extended. Your interests are in open antagonism to ours. They are 
"opposing and enduring" forces that can not live in close proximity. 
The ocean must roll between them. We can not permit you to augment 
your power in this hemisphere. This has been, is now, and will con- 
tinue to be the language of our statesmanship. This is what has been 
called the Monroe doctrine, but it was declared before Mr. Monroe was 
President. It was uttered by our first statesmen as our policy. It was 
declared by Congress in a joint resolution on the 15th of January, 1811, 
in reference to the possession of East Florida. In the winter of 1810-11 
information reached President Madison that there were indications 
that Great Britain was preparing to take possession of East Florida, 
then a province of Spain. On the 3d of January, 1811, he sent a con- 
fidential message to Congress and recommended them to declare that 
"the United States could not see without serious inquietude any part 
of a neighboring territory in which they have in different respects so * 
deep and so just a concern pass from the hands of Spain into those of 
any other foreign power," and he asked Congress to authorize him to 
take possession of the Floridas and hold them to secure ourselves. 

On the 15th day of January, 1811, Congress, by joint resolution, did 
declare that the United States could not "without serious inquietude" 
see any part of said territory pass into the hands of any foreign power, 
and authorized the President to take possession of the Floridas, which 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 5 

he did with the armed forces of the United States and practically held 
them until they were conveyed to us by the treaty of 1819. This was 
the Madison doctrine in 1811, the Monroe doctrine in 1823, and has been 
the American doctrine since 1787. In 1823, when the four great powers 
of Europe entered into an alliance to aid Spain to hold her revolting 
American colonies, President Monroe sent to Congress his message 
repeating the well-settled American doctrine, uttered by Madison on 
Januarys and declared by Congress on January 15, 1811. The princi- 
ple is declared in the guarded language of diplomacy, but all the world 
understood it, and Europe understood it, to mean that the United States 
would enter that contest with all their military and naval forces and 
remain in it until every armed intruder from Europe was driven from 
this hemisphere. Here was the Florida principle applied to the States 
of South America. This is the doctrine that Webster said reflected 
great honor on Monroe and "which could not be taken back, retracted, 
or annulled without disgrace." President Polk repeated it in 1845 
when he said "the people of this continent alone have the right to 
decide their own destiny," and Mr. Cass in 1855 when he said "we would 
not consent to the subjugation of any of the independent States of 
this continent by any European power." 

In 1864 an Austrian prince was sent to Mexico with an armed force to 
establish an empire on this continent. The House of Representatives 
of the United States, on the 4th of April, by a unanimous vote declared 
that it did not accord with our policy to recognize a monarchical govern- 
ment in Mexico, erected on the ruins of the Republic and under the 
auspices of any European power. Our minister to Austria was directed 
to say to that Government that if Austrian subjects were sent by that 
Government to Mexico "the United States would not remain as silent 
and neutral spectators." We served the same notice on the Government 
of France. After the termination of our civil war we assembled an army 
on our border to repeat the Florida lesson, if it became necessary, and 
take possession of the Mexican territory and hold it long enough to expel 
the European forces that had come to establish at our doors their "pri- 
mary interests." It is useless to add other citations. The principle 
we have asserted and maintained through our whole history is that 
every nation, like every man, has a right to do whatever is necessary 
to preserve its life. In Europe, where there are a number of independ- 
ent states in close proximity, self-preservation is secured by enormous 
military establishments and alliances, offensive and defensive. Our 
solated position, defended by the oceans that encircle us, relieves us from 



6 AFFAIES IN CUBA. 

all danger from that quarter. They can only disturb us by locating 
their sovereignty in this hemisphere and building up their military and 
naval establishments on this continent or its adjacent islands. So far 
we have warded off that danger, and it should be our constant care 
not only to prevent the growth of European power in our neighborhood, 
but to employ our energies in the development and strengthening of 
republican institutions in our part of the world. 

Of all the wide extended possessions of Spain in the Western world, 
only Cuba and Porto Rico remain to her today, and she holds them by 
the power of the United States. Their insular position, their inferi- 
ority in numbers, and being destitute of factories, guns, or muni- 
tions of war have rendered them unable to measure arms successfully 
with Spain, and all their struggles for independence have been vain. 
Spain's weakness among the maritime powers of Europe has made 
Cuba and Porto Rico coveted prizes among the stronger monarchies of 
that continent. More than once they have tried to acquire them, or, 
failing in that, to prevent us from doing so. When they have been 
assured that we would not permit any other power to acquire them, or 
in any manner control them, they have proposed to us that we would 
not acquire or control them. We have persistently declined to enter 
into any agreement with them on the subject. We have maintained 
that it was a subject about which we would consult our own welfare 
alone. We have in plain, positive, and unmistakable language vetoed 
all protectorates, alliances, and influences, European and American, 
over the island nearest our boundary. We have notified the world 
that no power on earth should take it from Spain without a death 
struggle on land and sea with the United States. We said to Mexico 
and Colombia in 1S25 that we would not permit them to invade Cuba ; 
that in case of a desolating war in Cuba we might be compelled to 
intervene to stop it, but that no other power should do so. 

Mr. Forsythe, in 1840, and Mr. Webster, in 1843, both speaking for our 
Government, said to Spain and the world that we would employ the 
whole of our military and naval resources to prevent Cuba from being 
wrested from Spain, and if it should pass from her either by purchase 
or conquest we would employ our whole military strength to recover it. 
This has been our position unequivocally expressed and unwaveringly 
maintained at all times. We have kept Cuba like a galley slave in a 
Spanish dungeon. Had it not been for our action Cuba would have 
been an English province seventy years ago, and her inhabitants would 
have had the mild government which that monarchy gives to its colonial 



AFFAIRS IN CUBA. i 

subjects. We have prevented it. We have refused to take the island 
or to let any other take it who would rescue its wretched people from 
the cruel dominion of Spain. For more than seventy years the island 
has been under martial law, and its unhappy population has been hunted, 
pillaged, and scourged by those into whose hands we have condemned 
them. It has repeatedly been the scene of insurrection, but every 
struggle has been extinguished in blood. It is now going through the 
most brutal experience it has ever endured. Its people are being gath- 
ered, men, women, and children into the towns to be starved to death. 
Men, women, and children are being apprehended and slaughtered like 
wild beasts, and still we maintain our position that we will not rescue 
them nor permit any other to do it. 

When our population was 10,000,000 we said to the world we would 
iutervene and stop a desolating war. Can we not do it when we have 
more than 70,000,000? If we hold our primacy over that island for our 
self-preservation, have not its people the same right to their self- 
preservation and the right to demand of us that while we are securing 
ourselves we shall also secure them 1? In asserting our power to con- 
trol the destiny of that island and its people we have assumed 
responsibilities of the gravest kind — responsibilities from which there 
is no escape. There is no tribunal on this earth that can call us to its 
bar and compel us to discharge the obligations which we have assumed. 
But there is One whose sleepless eye numbers the hairs in every head 
and watches the sparrows fall, who hears the cries and sees the tears 
of the victims whom we have given over to Spanish despotism — who 
hears the clanking of the chains that we have riveted — who beholds 
the devouring flames from the torch which we have lighted, and wit- 
nesses the blood of babes and sucklings upon the blades which we 
have drawn and plunged. It is vain to say we are not responsible for 
the oppressions and sickening persecutions of the people of Cuba. 
There is not a man or woman, who knowing the facts and whose moral 
nature has not been depraved, who will deny it. 

The heroic men who won our independence in the field and estab- 
lished it in the council believed in a God who presided over the desti- 
nies of nations. They appealed to him for the rectitude of their motives 
and conduct. They besought him at all times to look into their hearts 
and consciences and see that they only sought to enjoy the rights He 
had given them; that they sought to do no wrong to their fellows. 
They were earnest, brave, and sincere men, asking nothing but what 
was right, submitting to nothing that was wrong. They were led out 



8 AFFAIRS IN CUBA. 

of tlie darkness and into the light, and by their virtues they grew and 
waxed strong, and to-day their children stand on the highest eminences 
of the moral and physical world. But can we maintain it when we 
are the daily participants in a great crime? Can we expect a continu- 
ance of the blessings of Heaven when we are condemning to torture, 
to slavery, and to extermination a powerless people who are prostrate 
at our feet 1 ? We will not let Cuba and her people go to those who 
would give them the blessings of good government. We stand by and 
see a weak people writhing and breaking and dying on the wheel of a 
barbarous despotism and content ourselves by saying, "If you can 
extricate yourselves, do it. We have placed you there, and no other 
arm shall release you, and when in your desperation you strike at your 
tormentors Ave will refuse to recognize your rights as belligerents. 
Spain can obtain supplies in any part of the world. You can not. If 
you put a vessel on the seas to war on Spain's commerce, you may be 
hanged as pirates. If you buy provisions and munitions iu our mar- 
kets, we will apprehend your vessels and refuse to let them sail. If 
the courts release them, we will seize them again. We will preserve a 
rigorous neutrality to you and a vigorous partiality to Spain." 

This is the position we have taken toward Cuba and its people. That 
our safety demands that we should control the possession of that island 
is not to be questioned; that in controlling the government of the 
island we should protect its people in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and 
property is equally true. We can not keep Cuba in the possession of 
Spain without being responsible for Spain's government of its people. 
We know enough of that government to know that, as an honorable 
people, it is our duty now to intervene and stop the extermination of 
the people whom we have subjected to the power of Spain. 



